


King's Ransom

by Farasha



Series: King's Consort [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Dragon Sickness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-19 11:46:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 49,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3608922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Farasha/pseuds/Farasha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo is quite convinced that all the problems plaguing them in the mountain - specifically, Thorin acting quite unlike himself - stem from the blasted Arkenstone. The thing is probably cursed, and it's up to him to get it as far away from Thorin as he can - and while he's at it, he might as well try to stop a war before it starts.</p><p>Rather than offering Bard and Thranduil the Arkenstone, Bilbo offers to give them his share of the treasure if they will please go away. Unfortunately, neither of them is willing to believe Thorin will hand it over - which leads to a ransom plan that is, in Bilbo's opinion, quite ridiculous and doomed to fail from the start. But at least that blasted stone is out of the mountain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Avelera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avelera/gifts).



> This fic will be a mix of book and movie canon - you might recognize lines or situations from both sources. I am an unabashed canon blender.

In the gathering gloom of dusk, the air in the mountain drew down like a live thing coiling around its prey. It seemed to Bilbo that a pall was cast over the Company - there was none of the forced cheer interspersing uncomfortable silences they had all become used to since entering the mountain, only the silence itself. Thorin was absent, but that was not unusual of late, as he seemed to prefer to wander the desolate halls or stand at the treasury's high balcony, overlooking the gold.

Bilbo, for once, made his bedroll apart from the rest. Sleeping too near to them would make it all the more difficult to sneak away, as he planned. He would have preferred to be closer, if only for the comfort. The long days on the road had made him used to the deep snoring of dwarves. He'd become fond of their company, as well, although since they'd entered the mountain he grew used to Thorin singling him out, drawing him aside to walk the treasury or to stand beside the throne. 

The back of his neck prickled to think of the last time they'd been alone, just after Thorin gave him the mithril. Bilbo was not even sure he could say that the person he'd spoken to in that moment was the same person he'd followed out of the Shire. It hadn't sounded at all like Thorin - Bilbo had seen him in truly foul moods, and never had he _snarled_ like that. His words, too, rang too familiar. _Not one coin._ If Smaug had not said those exact words, it had been something quite similar. Bilbo feared what it meant to hear them from Thorin now. 

His friends all lay down to sleep in silence, only removing the most uncomfortable pieces of armor and keeping weapons close at hand. It was surely the looming battle that sapped the last of their brave front, and Bilbo did hate to see them like this. He had half a mind to inform them of his plan, or at least propose an alternative - they could tie Thorin up and sit on him until he came to his senses, if they were willing. It was the 'willing' part of that equation that Bilbo doubted. Even after all Thorin had done, even after it was plain he was not thinking clearly, none would raise even their voice against him. So Bilbo tried to break through to him as often as he could, whenever he saw Thorin's eyes clear and knew that he was _listening_ instead of merely hearing the sound of Bilbo's voice.

None of it had done any good - and bother Thranduil and Bard, anyway, for making an already tenuous situation worse. Could they not have allowed Thorin time to settle, allowed some of his people to come home to rebuild before they began their demands? Though, in Bard's case, it was true that a bargain had been broken, and Bard's people were in sore need of aid.

It did not excuse the threats, much less the army camped on Erebor's doorstep. For that, Bilbo could understand Thorin's anger. Not his obsession, not his paranoia - but the anger was reasonable. Still, this was the path to certain ruin. They had come too far and weathered too much for it all to end in war over _pride_ , of all the foolish things. 

_That is unfair. Thorin is not himself - has not quite been himself from the moment he set foot inside the mountain_. That more than anything was the root of his commitment to this plan. Bilbo was firmly convinced that it was better to carry this blasted bewitching stone as far away from the mountain as he could, so that was what he would do. What happened to it after he got it away from Thorin was not his concern, but doubts about his plan to use it as a bargaining chip were beginning to creep into his heart. If it was cursed, as he believed, how would its magic work on kings bent toward war?

_What's to say Bard won't merely take the stone as the promised payment? What's to say Thranduil won't claim it for himself? Thorin's lost himself over it - will either of them be any different?_

The last of the day's light faded. Night inside the mountain was an unsettling darkness, impenetrable to Bilbo's sight. None of the dwarves seemed bothered by it, and Bilbo could only conclude that their night-sight was better than his. It meant he would have to be cautious. With the only entry to the mountain blocked by a wall of tumbled stone, there was little need to set a watch, but perhaps the Company took comfort in routine. Bombur stayed awake as the others curled into their bedrolls. Bilbo could barely make out the bulk of his form against the cold light of the stars, but even with that little illumination he could tell that Bombur's shoulders were hunched, his elbows rested on his drawn-up knees. Occasionally, he would shift and stare into the darkness of the mountain. Bilbo was certain he was looking for Thorin.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of waiting in the dark, Bombur rose and made his way to the tops of the battlement. Bilbo took the opportunity to fumble the ring out of his pocket, to arrange his bedroll in such a way that it would appear he still slept soundly if one did not look too close. He slipped the ring on as Bombur finished his patrol across the tops. If there was one thing he had become very skilled at over the course of this journey, it was moving silently under the very nose of the person whose notice he was trying to escape.

When they woke in the morning and found him gone, would they once again assume him a coward, as Thorin had after the goblin tunnels? Would they think he had wandered somewhere inside the mountain, lost in its winding halls? Either way, the thought of his companions frantic with worry buried itself in Bilbo's gut, and he paused with one foot slung over the wall.

_It's the only way and you know it_ , he told himself firmly. _Thorin will never budge from the mountain if threatened with force. He must be brought to see reason, even if it be through trickery_. He could not question his resolve. Either this would work, or they were doomed. There was no middle course. Bilbo double checked that the rope tied around his waist was snug and began his descent.

It was a hard climb, but it was not the exertion that made Bilbo struggle for breath. As he climbed, the Arkenstone was like a leaden weight in the pocket of his coat. He couldn't trust _Thorin_ with it. He certainly couldn't trust either of the people who'd brought _armies_ to his door.

Gandalf. If only Gandalf were here, he'd know what to do. Bilbo had never wished for an interfering old wizard as much as he did in that moment, trying not to slide down the wall and fall into the water below, halfway through a plan that was, quite frankly, ridiculous and dangerous and likely the most ridiculous and dangerous thing he'd done yet. A plan that he wasn't even sure of any longer. Bilbo took a deep breath and swallowed the urge to climb right back up the gate and return to his bedroll. He'd nearly reached the bottom, he was exhausted, and he still had a bit of a swim to make before he would come to the camp. Turning back was no longer an option.

He slipped off the end of the rope and into the water as quietly as he was able. He stayed there, clinging to the rope for a moment. _Well now, Bilbo Baggins, you've gotten yourself this far into a fix. I do hope you have a plan to get yourself out of it again_.

The stream was not so deep, but it was deep enough that Bilbo had to wade through it, with water up to his armpits at times. As he climbed out, his foot slid on the bank and he ended up face-down in the water, sputtering and flailing until he hauled himself out.

A bright lantern illuminated the bank, and Bilbo scrambled behind a rock before remembering that his ring kept him out of sight. Two elven scouts, one with an arrow on his bow and the other with her lantern held high, scanned the riverbank with puzzled expressions. The scout with the lantern murmured something to her companion, but Bilbo was too far away to make out the words.

_This will be as good a way as any to get to where I need to be_. Bilbo slipped the ring off and dropped it in his pocket, then rose slowly from behind the rock, palms out. "Don't shoot! I'm over here."

The scouts clearly did not expect to see him appear out of nowhere, but he did not end up with an arrow for his troubles. The elf with the lantern crossed the distance between them with swift strides, grabbing Bilbo by his coat as if she thought he might try to escape. "Where did you come from?"

Bilbo scowled and pursed his lips, quite tempted to snap something sarcastic before remembering that it was probably unwise to mouth off at his captors. "From the mountain, of course. I am Bilbo Baggins, of Thorin's company, and I've come to treat with Bard - and your king, too, since he's here. Take me to them directly, if you please."

That provoked a short argument in Sindarin - from what Bilbo could gather, the archer was curious to see what Thranduil would do with him, while the elf maid was doubtful. Something about orders to shoot anything that moved inside the mountain.

"If you are going to shoot me, I wish you'd have done with it," Bilbo said, standing stiff and dripping with his fists balled at his sides. "I'm cold, and I feel quite like a drowned rat. On the other hand, I'm certain Bard and Thranduil will want to hear what I have to say. Any time before the dawn, now." He paused as both elves regarded him with surprise. "And to be precise, I am outside the mountain, so you are hardly violating orders."

The elves did not appear amused by that little piece of logic, but nevertheless Bilbo found himself escorted - with a firm hand on his shoulder, despite his assurances that he had no intention of escaping - away from the mountain and into the encampment. He expected to be left to wait as Bard and Thranduil were found, but to his surprise, it appeared that neither king sought rest that night. The tent the scouts led him to was large and brightly lit, enough that Bilbo could see three silhouettes as they approached. The voices from inside were raised. One of them was booming and weathered, and Bilbo recognized it immediately. His mouth was dry and the knot of worry still gnawed at his chest, but his spirits lifted at the thought of _something_ going his way this night.

"Please excuse the disturbance," the archer said, drawing aside the flap of the tent. "We found this halfling at the foot of the mountain-"

"Gandalf!" Bilbo exclaimed, cheered at the sight of the wizard, who turned to regard him with quite the surprised expression indeed. Bard and Thranduil were there as well, and by the way they stood at one end of the tent while Gandalf stood at the other, Bilbo suspected he could gather what they'd been arguing about.

"Bilbo Baggins!" Gandalf said. "Never may I cease being surprised by hobbits. I expected to find you inside the mountain."

"Yes, well," Bilbo said. He was acutely aware of his appearance, from the dirt smudged on his face and hands to his sodden clothes, especially as Thranduil turned to regard him with a chilly look. Bilbo was already cold, and that made his nerves nearly seize his blood to ice. Then the elvenking gestured for the scouts to leave them, and the tent closed behind them when they departed, leaving Bilbo as the sole target of Thranduil's piercing looks.

"If I am not mistaken," Thranduil said, "this is the halfling who stole the keys to my dungeons from under the noses of my guards." He settled into a chair like it was a throne, eyeing Bilbo with open suspicion.

"Ah... yes," Bilbo said, forging bravely ahead. "Sorry about that." Thranduil's regard of him did not change, and even though the corner of Bard's mouth twitched like he wanted to smile, he still affected an impassive expression. Bilbo looked between them, disconcerted by how closely they seemed to be allied. The beginnings of a new plan was forming in his mind, one that could possibly work, if either of them would listen to reason. "I came to make you an offer. Thorin will never surrender the mountain if you threaten him with force - none of them will. This is their home, and they've only just regained it."

"They are outnumbered," Bard said, his brows knit together and a frown on his lips. "Vastly outnumbered. Surely they can see that there is no victory with this course?"

"It won't matter," Bilbo said. "You don't know dwarves as well as I do - you have no idea how stubborn they can be when pressed. They'll defend the mountain to the death."

"What is it you come to offer, then? A way in?" Bard exchanged another look with Thranduil, and the frown on his face took on a puzzled cast. "Will you betray your friends?"

"Good gracious, of course not!" Bilbo said, with a vehemence that surprised even himself. Bard's words pierced him straight through, and the knot in his chest locked up tight at the very thought. He could not fathom betraying Thorin in such a way, to lead an army into the mountain through some skulking back road. "If that is why you think I've come, to assist you in this horrid fighting, I might as well turn back to the mountain before I'm missed!"

"Calm down, Bilbo," Gandalf said, hiding a smile in his beard and with a twinkle of amusement in his eye.

"I have never met a group of more suspicious people in my life," Bilbo said, still quite wound up at the suggestion. Bard's scowl had cleared, but he still wore wary suspicion on his brows. It solidified Bilbo's resolve - he could not let either of them get their hands on the Arkenstone. To give them that _would_ be a betrayal, one that Thorin might never forgive him for. Nevermind that the thing was more than likely cursed, and throwing it into _this_ mix would provoke yet more problems. "All this nonsense over treasure! Well, if you want it so badly, you can have mine and be welcome to it. I hardly have a use for it."

"Yours?" Thranduil asked, with an arch look that might have been amused.

It only made Bilbo more cross. "Yes, mine! I have a contract - ah-" he patted his pockets, his hand falling over the weight of the Arkenstone and immediately shying away, and finally huffed in exasperation, "-somewhere, if it's even still legible after our trip down the river. It entitles me to one fourteenth share of all the treasure in Erebor, and if you would kindly pack up your armies and be about your business, it is yours."

"I am not here for treasure," Thranduil said. "I am here for what rightfully belongs to my people."

"Whatever it is, I will add it to my claim!" Bilbo snapped, thoroughly exasperated. They could not ask for a better bargain - he was giving them what they wanted. "Part of that treasure is mine to do with as I please, and I please to resolve this mess so there will not have to be a war."

"Why?" Bard asked, that puzzled expression back on his face. "You owe us no loyalty."

"I'm not doing it for _you_ ," Bilbo said, feeling like that should be obvious. Both kings stared at him, their manner unchanging, and Bilbo shook his head. "I'm doing it for them. They've come so far, and have been without their home for so long, and we've seen each other through a number of situations that I'd rather not remember, thank you very much." 

He thought of Balin's ready wit, Dwalin's gruff bluster that did not do much to hide how he always kept the Durins in sight. Oin had books worth of knowledge riding around in his head, and Gloin spoke so tenderly and fondly of his family. Dori, happy to trade the secrets of brewing excellent tea. Nori, with his knife-edged smile and wicked remarks. Ori, always delighted to hear more about the Shire. Bofur, quick with a smile and a joke, and Bombur, a force to rival Bilbo in the kitchen. Bifur, surprisingly nimble with his large hands, carving tiny bits and bobs out of sticks along the road. Fili and Kili, inseparable and bright-hearted, worried to death about their uncle but continuing on as best they could.

Thorin, noble and proud. Most of all, Bilbo could not conceive of anything happening to Thorin without his throat closing tight. "I've grown quite fond of them," he said thickly, aware that too much time had passed in silence. "I would save them, if I can. Now, Thorin gave me his word-"

"What worth is the word of Thorin Oakenshield?" Thranduil interrupted, sinking back into the chair. "Bard was also given the word of the King Under the Mountain, and yet it was easily broken."

Bilbo opened his mouth to reply and then shut it, too aware that it was a pointed argument, even though his first instinct was to defend Thorin. He had a feeling the dwarves would not thank him for revealing that their king was not himself.

"I agree," Bard said, although he looked reluctant to. "It is a generous offer, and kindly meant, but what assurances do we have that your share will be delivered as requested?"

For one long, aching moment, Bilbo felt the Arkenstone weigh heavy on his breast. That would certainly be the token Thorin would trade anything for - anything at all. The thought chilled him to his blood. _Anything?_ he thought. _Your life? The Company's? His kin?_

Bilbo found that he could not face the answer to that question, for if Thorin was that far lost, all of their journey would be for nothing. The Arkenstone must remain hidden. He would speak of it to no-one.

His silence was broken with a sigh from Bard. "We should continue laying plans for the siege, Your Majesty." 

Thranduil inclined his head slowly and rose from his throne-like seat, coming to the table.

"Oh, confound it!" Bilbo said, losing his hold on his temper at last. "I do not see why this is all so blasted important that you must resort to threats and - and - _extortion!_ It must be some witchery lies on crowns, for the heads under them to become so bothersome! I am certain the two of you could figure something out - ransom _me_ against it for all I care!"

Bilbo expected the well-bred huff of derision from Thranduil at the suggestion. What he did not expect was for Bard to turn to the elvenking and say, "I wouldn't dismiss that idea so easily. Thorin barely let Bilbo out of his sight while they were in Lake-town, and Bilbo - you vouched for his honor. I suspect that is part of what drove you here tonight." 

Bilbo coughed a bit. "Well, 'honor' is a rather high-handed way of saying I am a hobbit of my word."

"The King Under the Mountain is ready to go to war against hundreds with a mere thirteen dwarves," Thranduil said, and there was something distinctly bored in his cultured tones. "What does he care for the life of one halfling?"

Bilbo bristled. "Now see here," he said, thoroughly annoyed with Thranduil's arrogant manner. "We _much_ prefer to be called hobbits, thank you! I am fully grown for my kind, and I am not half of anything!"

Gandalf chuckled, but he remained silent, seemingly content to let Bilbo blunder through this task as best he was able. Bard was looking at Bilbo with quite an odd expression, near-pained, and then took a deep breath like he was bracing himself. "Thorin and Bilbo were never far from each other's company here in Lake-town," he said. He looked away from Bilbo, but kept sneaking looks back, as if he was expecting Bilbo to become cross with him, too. "Several times, it seemed that Thorin sought Bilbo's counsel, even above the rest. I believe he would pay a king's ransom to get him back."

"What? I - Thorin doesn't - well, all right, he _does_ trust me," Bilbo said, remembering Thorin's words in the mountain. "We have become quite close, if I do say so myself, and we've seen each other through many perils. But he-" Bilbo stopped, his teeth clicking together, remembering that he did not wish to mention the Arkenstone or Thorin's sickness. "I doubt he would consider me important enough to ransom."

Bard shook his head. "If there is one thing he may value above the treasure in the mountain, it is the lives of those who follow him."

That, Bilbo could find no answer to, for it was the truth.

"It is a risk, to be certain," Gandalf said, the first time he had offered an opinion on the discussion. Bilbo found himself pinned under a shrewd gaze. "I would like to take a moment to speak with my burglar. In private, if you would."

Thranduil and Bard exchanged looks, but Thranduil inclined his head and made a sweeping gesture that indicated they should step out. Bilbo, his nerves still frayed from the mood in the tent, jumped not a few inches when Gandalf's hand came down to rest on his shoulder, steering him outside. "Hang on a minute, we don't have time-"

Gandalf stooped, bringing his gaze to Bilbo's level. "I must ask you something, and I must ask you to be absolutely truthful with me," he said, his voice low and firm. "Is Thorin of sound mind?"

Bilbo swallowed. Of all the things Gandalf could have asked him to be truthful about, he wished the wizard had not chosen this one. "Not.. not exactly," he admitted, feeling like even that was beyond the allowance of friendship.

"I feared it would be so," Gandalf said. "It is why I told him not to enter the mountain. Ever since his grandfather, the line of Durin-"

"That's nonsense," Bilbo said sharply. "There's nothing wrong with Thorin, not one thing. It's that blasted Arkenstone. Thorin will talk of nothing else, and he has the Company searching the treasury for it non-stop. All except me, who he will not allow out of his sight. What will happen in the morning when he discovers I am missing, I surely do not care to know."

"Oh?" Gandalf said, his bushy eyebrows lifting. "Has he threatened you?"

"Me! No, of course not," Bilbo said. "I have nothing to fear from Thorin - he trusts me. It is the others I fear for. He has grown ever more suspicious as the Arkenstone remains missing, and he is now convinced one of them must be keeping it from him."

Gandalf did not answer for a moment, searching Bilbo's face like he was looking for a lie. Bilbo merely scowled at him - the wizard had asked him to be truthful, and he was. "Thorin told you he trusted you?"

"Not in so many words," Bilbo said, "but he calls me to his side when he wanders the mountain, and he confides his suspicions in me. He never suspected me, not even when-" Bilbo stopped mid-sentence and coughed, too aware of Gandalf's sharp eyes on him. "He gave me this, and I imagine it has some value." Bilbo drew aside his coat to show the mithril shirt.

An astounded look came over Gandalf, and he straightened. "Mithril!" he said, looking at Bilbo with renewed surprise.

"He said it was a gift. A token of our friendship."

"A gift? While he is so jealous of the gold?"

Bilbo frowned. "I don't believe he sees it the same way. He said the gold was ours, and ours alone."

"Hm! Well then," Gandalf said, an amused smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. He turned to enter the tent again without so much as a by-your-leave. "Thranduil, you will be pleased to know that Bard is right. Thorin would most certainly exchange Bilbo's share of the treasure for him - in fact, I am quite convinced he would do anything if he could be assured of Bilbo's safety."

"You can't be serious!" Bilbo cried. "I was - it was - I was jesting!"

"Nevertheless, I believe it to be our best course of action at present," Gandalf said. "Ride out to the gate before the dawn, when there has been no time for them to notice Bilbo missing. Offer to ransom him for his fourteenth share of the treasure, and Thorin will comply."

Thranduil looked between Bilbo, who was sputtering half-formed denials, and Bard, who tilted his head at Gandalf before nodding his agreement. "You are certain?" he asked Gandalf.

"No! This is ridiculous!" Bilbo said.

Gandalf, however, only said, "I am as certain of this as I am that we have no more time to lose. The orc armies will be on us swiftly, and we can ill afford to be sniping at each other when they arrive."

"Orc-" Bilbo's voice squeaked, and he cleared his throat. "Orc armies?"

"Yes indeed," Gandalf said. "Azog the Defiler marches on Erebor with an army of orcs, goblins, and other manner of hideous creatures. It is why we are of the same mind on this matter - that it must be ended without bloodshed. We cannot afford to waste our resources fighting one another. Not with what comes."

"I would much rather there not be any fighting at all," Bilbo said, heart sinking. If Thorin got wind of this, he would be out of the mountain and throwing himself recklessly into battle before anyone could stop him, and the others would be right behind him. And if that happened before they could sort out the business with the treasure, Bilbo would not be there to watch out for him. He dreaded to think what harm might come to them then.

Thranduil regarded him steadily for a long moment. "Very well," he said finally. "We will present the halfling as our prisoner, and barter his share of the treasure against his release. At the dawn-"

"One last thing," Gandalf said, unperturbed by the withering look he received for interrupting the elvenking. "I believe it would be best if you, and you alone, presented Bilbo for the ransom."

"Why?" Bard asked, frowning. "It is my people who need the gold, not the elves."

"If you ever wish to repair relations with the kingdom of Erebor, you cannot be present for this. Thranduil has already earned Thorin's enmity several times over. I fear that if Thorin saw you as an accomplice in this, he would hold you in the same regard," Gandalf said.

"You can't be serious," Bilbo said weakly. "I'm only a _hobbit_."

"I am quite serious," Gandalf said. "Trust me in this, Bard of Lake-town. Allow Thranduil to make the negotiation."

Bard glanced between Bilbo and Gandalf, clearly puzzled, but he gave way in the face of Gandalf's insistence. "Then I will ride with the rear guard," he said. "I can be close at hand should trouble arise."

Thranduil did not bother arguing with the wizard, although it was not clear whether he agreed with Gandalf or simply did not think the matter worth arguing over. His attention turned back to Bilbo, who was quite thoroughly tired of being stared at like a peculiarity. "You must be bound, if you are to be my prisoner."

Bilbo made a face, but shrugged his shoulders. "If you must," he said. "I still don't think any of this is necessary. My share of the treasure is mine, and Thorin will give it to me."

"Thorin Oakenshield has not proven himself trustworthy," Thranduil said.

"Oh yes?" Bilbo said, waspish. "How many kings do you believe would hand over their kingdom's treasure with an army knocking at their gates? Would you?"

To his satisfaction, his question was met by nothing but silence. Thranduil did not exactly look ashamed of himself, but his face went quite expressionless indeed. Bard, on the other hand, had a twist of regret to his mouth and would not meet Bilbo's eyes.

Gandalf bustled him off to a small chamber in a ruined building, where a pallet had been laid for him to sleep. He was bundled up in blankets and given food and a blessedly hot mug of tea, which did much to drive away the chill of the river and his wet clothes. He was offered a replacement for those, but declined, reasoning that a prisoner would hardly be afforded dry clothing. He waited until the weasel of a man who had brought him tea left before peeling out of them, lest he flash his mithril shirt to all and sundry - he did not have to fear being plundered by the elves, but Men were an entirely different matter. He slept in his smallclothes, damp and somewhat cold but no more miserable than he'd been for many nights on the road.

The sleep and the food should have settled him, but instead Bilbo woke in the cold grey light of pre-dawn, sitting up abruptly. He was all nerves, alight with them, and he forced himself to pull his still-damp clothes on slowly. He hesitated over the mithril, but finally pulled it on over his shirt. If something went wrong at the gate this morning, being impervious to blades would be quite useful. He checked to be sure the Arkenstone was safe in its pocket - as he did, his fingers brushed the other, smaller pocket where his ring rested. He would need to keep that close at hand in case a quick escape was necessary.

No sooner had he made himself presentable and ducked out the ruined doorway did Thranduil arrive, astride the same enormous elk Bilbo had seen him ride before Erebor's gates. He looked down his elegant nose at Bilbo. Today, instead of veiled amusement, there was a spark of interest to his gaze. "Relieve the halfling of his sword, and bind his hands," he ordered.

To Bilbo's surprise, the same two elves who had taken him to camp the night before stepped forward. "Hello, then," Bilbo said. "I don't suppose there's time for a spot of breakfast before we get this over with?" He unbuckled Sting from his waist, holding the blade in his hands with a reluctant frown on his lips. "I mislike giving up my sword, much as I never thought I would hear myself say it."

"It is enough that we have not searched you and confiscated what items you carry on your person," Thranduil said, and Bilbo's neck prickled. He thought of the Arkenstone with foreboding. Did Thranduil know, or at least suspect, that the promise of treasure was not all that Bilbo had come to bargain with? What would the haughty King of the Woodland Realm do with a cursed jewel?

After a moment, he realized that Thranduil was looking not at the pockets of his coat, but at the gap at its front. Suddenly reminded of the mithril, Bilbo thrust out the scabbard and belt, yanking his coat closed over the mail shirt as soon as they were taken from him. He keenly felt the loss of Sting, but the idea of being stripped of his mithril shirt was intolerable. It had seemed a strange thing, Thorin giving him such a gift, but Bilbo knew it had been to protect him. The thought provoked a surge of affection, and his nerves settled a bit. No matter what the outcome of today, Bilbo was certain that preventing a war was the best thing he could do for Thorin - besides getting the Arkenstone away from him, which he'd already done.

The elves bound his hands in front of him, secure but not tight enough to hurt. He objected noisily to be tossed onto a horse like a sack of luggage, until Thranduil's unreadable gaze pierced him again and the elvenking said mildly, "If you aren't quiet when we come to the gate, I may be forced to gag you as well."

Bilbo turned three different shades of red at the thought of being subject to such an indignity and fell silent as they rode out, Thranduil on his ridiculously ostentatious elk and Bilbo slung over the back of the elf scout's saddle, on his belly, with a poor view of the proceedings save for the cobblestones passing under the horse's hooves. "This cannot be necessary," he grumbled, although he did so quietly. Sting's sheath bounced against the back of his calves from where it was strapped to the saddle, and Bilbo took some comfort knowing it was near.

"His Majesty's orders," the scout said, equally quiet - it was the archer, the male elf, the one who'd been reluctant to shoot him. "I'm certain there's a reason."

Bilbo wasn't so sure - he had a feeling this was Thranduil's way of getting his revenge for the escape from his dungeons. Bilbo hadn't expected a _king_ to be so petty as to hold a grudge, but then again, royalty did not seem to be all it was made out to be in legend.

The ride was uncomfortable - the leather of the saddle dug into his skin, and the pace at which they trotted was enough to jounce him around. Bilbo clenched his jaw not only from annoyance, but to keep himself from biting his tongue. The dwarves would be angry enough to see him as Thranduil's prisoner - no need to bloody himself up and provoke the situation further. The pink blush of dawn was just breaking over the fields of Smaug's desolation when they approached the gate. The sound of jangling armor was all around him as the ranks of elves parted to let them through.

Bilbo's first inkling that this might not go as smoothly as he predicted was the sound of an arrow whistling through the air and shattering on the stone. Abruptly, the horse Bilbo was on came to a halt, and the sound of clanking armor went quiet.

"I will put the next one between your eyes," came Thorin's voice from the top of the gate, followed by the raucous cheers of dwarves. Bilbo closed his eyes and breathed a slow, relieved sigh - he was cheered to hear that Thorin was _there_ , instead of holed up somewhere in the mountain.

There was the sudden sound of armor shifting, the drawing of many bows, and Bilbo struggled from his place on the back of the saddle, trying to get a better look. The voices of his companions died out abruptly. "What's happening?" he whispered.

"Be silent," the scout whispered back.

"Where is the bowman?" Thorin asked. "Has he crawled off back to Lake-town with his tail between his legs?"

Thranduil ignored both question and insult. "I have come to inform you that I have something of yours," he said. "A spy and a thief, I believe."

Suddenly Bilbo found himself wrested from the back of the horse by the collar of his coat. "No need for rough handling - stop that there!" The scout seized him firmly by the collar and dragged him from the saddle, shoving him out in front. Though he was prepared for it, he still stumbled, his foot catching on a rough stone, and fell to his knees with a sharp cry of pain.

"Bilbo!" Kili shouted. " _Kidnappers!_ "

"They've got Bilbo!" This time it was Bofur, and other shouts of his name carried down from the tops of the wall - but nothing from Thorin. Bilbo's palms were beginning to gather sweat, and he craned his neck up at the gate, trying to see. Thorin was staring at him, and when their eyes met Bilbo could see something desperate burning in their depths. Bilbo tried to beg him with a silent gaze to calm down, to be reasonable.

Thranduil continued as if the dwarves had not even spoken. "He claimed he had come to pay _your_ debt, King Under the Mountain," he said, and Thorin's eyes flickered to him before fixing back on Bilbo. "Something regarding a fourteenth share of all the gold in the mountain. Of course, I could no more believe the word of a thief than that of a dwarf blinded by greed."

Thorin drew his bow again, sighting on Thranduil. "I owe no debt to beggars - it is _you_ who are the thieves! I demand you release him at once!"

"The prisoner may be released - with adequate compensation," Thranduil said. Bilbo didn't dare look back at him - it would have meant looking away from Thorin, and he felt as if he would never be able to move from that pinning stare. The elvenking added, "He seems to think he has some worth to you."

A long string of vicious Khuzdul erupted from Thorin. Fili sprang forward and grabbed his bow arm, keeping him from firing the arrow he had on the string. Bilbo heard Dori's faint, "Oh dear," followed by Balin's sharp, scandalized, " _Thorin!_ "

"I did not think so," Thranduil said, bland and bored. "How could the life of a thief be worth anything?"

Bilbo could not see Thranduil gesture, but he must have, for the scout jerked Bilbo to his feet by the collar of his coat. He would have protested, but for the cold kiss of steel as his throat, the sharp scrape of a knife. Bilbo could not help the shocked, thoroughly embarrassing noise he made, very similar to a mouse being trod upon, and in that moment two things became quite clear to him. 

First, Thranduil was taking this business far more seriously than they'd agreed, and Bilbo was beginning to be unutterably cross with him. 

Second, this was doing nothing to make Thorin more willing to cooperate with the disastrous ransom plan.

"Unhand him!" Thorin roared, his face a mask of rage. There was something else in his expression when he looked to Bilbo, something aching and fierce all at once. Bilbo's fingers suddenly itched for his ring, to slip it on and dash up the gate to him so he could fix it. He could convince Thorin about his share of the treasure if he was _there_ with him - for him.

The cold weight of the Arkenstone in his pocket reminded him why he could not do it. Even now, after only a night, the lost, glazed look - the one that came over Thorin when he stood in the treasury amidst the gold - was gone, replaced by something very _Thorin_. He couldn't take the stone back in the mountain now.

Bilbo's bound hands sprang up to the archer's arm, gripping hard. "Thorin!" he called, desperate to do _something_ to reassure him. "Thorin, I'm all right! I haven't been hurt, I- mphh!"

The scout clapped a hand over his mouth, and Bilbo went limp, not daring to struggle in his grasp lest he injure himself on the blade. Thorin's eyes were wild, like he could not bear any more. Bilbo could not see him like this - it was intolerable. 

"Ah, so the halfling _is_ of value," Thranduil said, and Bilbo could practically hear the self-satisfied smirk. He wanted to tie the elf's pretty hair in knots. He wanted to go to Thorin and explain everything.

"His share of the treasure-" Thorin began.

"A fourteenth of the gold in Erebor is not sufficient to account for the damages you have wrought," Thranduil said, cold and sharp. Now, Bilbo struggled against the scout's hold on him, ignoring the whispered admonishments to stay still. "For his freedom without harm, I require no less than half of all the gold the mountain contains, in addition to the White Gems of Lasgalen, which are my property."

Another, louder cry of outrage came from the top of the wall. Bilbo, furious, yanked on the scout's knife arm and bit the palm covering his mouth. The scout let out a shout of surprise and took his hand away. "Thorin, don't! That wasn't-" the scout shoved part of his sleeve into Bilbo's mouth, cutting him off once more. He was going to ruin everything if he didn't stay still, he knew - either force the scout to release him or slit his throat, whichever Thranduil had ordered - but Thorin would never accept those terms. Thranduil was taking this too far, and Bilbo had to stop-

"Done."

That one word was like the fall of a hammer, striking stillness in all present. It was rasped heavily, and even from his place on the ground Bilbo could see Thorin's hands shaking, as if he was fighting with himself. He was breathing hard, staring down at Bilbo with that same intense, pained look on his face, and Bilbo's breath caught on a sudden tightness in his throat.

"Now release him," Thorin said, never taking his eyes off Bilbo.

"When we have the gold," Thranduil said. "Take him away."

The scout started to drag Bilbo back to the horse, and that, it seemed, was the last straw for Thorin. He yelled something incomprehensible and clutched the tops of the crenellations with both hands as if he would heave himself over the wall and attack Thranduil with his bare hands, the bow clattering forgotten to the stone. Fili seized one arm and Kili the other, but Thorin made no move either to shake them off or to struggle against them. "Bilbo," he called, voice thick and strained. 

Bilbo dug his heels in, striving to stay in Thorin's sight for as long as possible. The scout had to remove his sleeve before he could toss Bilbo over the saddle again, and Bilbo ignored the glare when he yelled, "It's all right, Thorin!" Then he was face-down over the saddle again, and the scout mounted in front of him. Bilbo kept his bound hands pressed close to his chest, holding the Arkenstone in his pocket, and tried to pack all the encouragement into the voice that he could. "Don't worry about me! I can rescue myself!"

He would have continued, save for the sudden quiet from the ramparts, and the squawk of a raven. He squirmed, trying to see, but there was a clatter of armor around him and the horse had room to turn, which the scout used fully to his advantage, trotting away from the gates of Erebor.

"Wait! Go back! What's happening?" The elf didn't answer, continuing to ride away from the gate. It occurred to Bilbo that he might be a tad cross, and he had a sudden fit of embarrassment over the scene he'd made. "Erm, sorry about the biting thing," he said. "It's only that Thranduil was being excessively bothersome, and I had to say _something_."

The scout huffed quietly, something that might have been a snort of disbelief from a less elegant individual. "You are quite the bold one, little halfling," he said. "Do you often gamble with your life?"

"Seems like it's becoming something of a pattern," Bilbo grunted. The saddle jostled most unpleasantly, and he decided there was some advantage to skipping breakfast. The inane thought was welcome. It kept him from dwelling on the awful look on Thorin's face as he was dragged away - it had almost been like a piece of him was being torn out. 

And the ransom! Half of all the gold in Erebor? Thorin had barely even hesitated. It was ridiculous - Bilbo was not so important as to be worth that kind of fortune. It almost made him seriously consider that there was something to Bard's talk of Thorin valuing him above the rest - that maybe he _hadn't_ been misinterpreting... certain signals. But that was preposterous, and this was no time for such silly indulgences. Thorin surely would have paid as much and more to free any member of his Company from imprisonment. It was not as if _Bilbo_ demanded such a price.

The elf seized the back of his coat to keep him from falling as he reined the horse in, turning abruptly. A shudder of vibration traveled up the horse's hooves, then another, and a faint thudding and clanking carried over the quiet of the morning. Bilbo would have kicked the scout if he could reach, but he didn't want to kick the horse, so he settled for whispering furiously. "What is it _now?_ "

"It appears a small army of dwarves are marching over the ridge," the elf said tightly. "If my eyes do not deceive me, it is Dain Ironfoot, cousin to the King Under the Mountain. I do not imagine peace is very likely, now."

"Oh, why not? Let's have a war with three armies, then," Bilbo groaned. "If there's going to be a fight, could I please have my sword? Or untie my hands." There was nothing but silence from the elf. "At least let me sit _up_ on the horse so I can _see_."

"King Thranduil was very specific," the scout said, reluctantly nudging the horse into motion again. "I am to convey you back to Dale, where you will remain safe."

"Bother that!" Bilbo said, but there was nothing for it - the scout did not answer or slow the horse, and Bilbo did not want to risk breaking something by jumping off, not when there was about to be a war. Despite the brave front he affected, fear gnawed at his stomach and his heart. Thorin would be out there, and him still not entirely well, standing against Elves and Men and Orcs and who knew what else.

The sensible, Baggins part of him, the part that had been shrilling in the back of his mind about what a foolhardy venture this was, how he should have stayed home where it was safe and cozy and nothing untoward or dangerous ever happened, insisted that he put on the ring and vanish somewhere far away from the battle. 

Bilbo scowled at himself and pushed that thought away. He resolved to give his captors the slip as soon as possible so he could find Thorin in the mess of it.

His internal Baggins threw up its metaphorical hands and gave up with a final, huffed thought. _You are going to get yourself killed_.

Bilbo did not try to argue with himself - there was a very good chance of that, for certain - but he would not sit idly by while his friends were in danger, not while he was still able to help, and that was final.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank [baggvinshield](http://archiveofourown.org/users/baggvinshield/pseuds/baggvinshield) and trollmblr5000 on Tumblr for beta reading this first chapter - your feedback was invaluable.
> 
> I plan to write with a buffer, meaning that you won't see chapter two until I'm finished with chapter three, so unfortunately, this will not be quick to update.
> 
> Also: Y'ALL. I HAVE FAN ART FOR THIS CHAPTER NOW!!!  
> http://rainglazed.tumblr.com/post/114899975825/kings-ransom-by-farashasilver-the-prisoner-may


	2. Chapter 2

The raven landed on the crenellation almost the moment Thorin lost sight of Bilbo at last, his dirt-streaked face and messy curls disappearing behind a wall of armed elves. At first, he did not register the bird's arrival, his fingers digging into the stone of the rampart. The raven squawked irritably and began to repeat its message, now that it was more certain it held its king's attention.

"Once the payment has been conducted to the gate, the halfling will be released into your custody - no sooner," Thranduil called. "Do we have an accord?"

Thorin searched the army for Bilbo again. He spotted the horse readily enough, but he could no longer see the hobbit on the back of it.

_Thranduil cannot be trusted. He will not keep his word. Bilbo is gone._

"I do not treat with kidnappers and oathbreakers," Thorin rasped, despair thickening his tongue. "You will come to regret provoking the wrath of the dwarves."

He turned his eyes to the rise in the East, where the sun had just broken bright and gold, and was rewarded with the sight of light glinting off dwarven armor, the sound of many heavy feet marching over the plain. Dain had come.

Thranduil turned his mount and shouted in elvish, his army turning to meet Dain's forces as they approached. The men of Dale were with them at the rear, armed with crude tools instead of weapons. Thorin watched them march toward Dain's army and halt, banners snapping in the breeze. 

His cousin's voice carried loud and strident over the air, but his words seemed to come to Thorin through a thick fog. Dain had come. When a dragon still crouched in the mountain, he refused to aid Thorin's quest - but now that the threat was gone and the gold there for the taking, _now_ he arrived.

_You can no more trust Dain Ironfoot than you can the elves, or the men of Dale. He, too, will demand payment. Or perhaps he comes to claim your crown._

To his left, Thorin saw Kili break into a cheer - he heard the same from Fili on his other side, and the roaring laughter of many of the company. Dain had said something to Thranduil, something particularly insulting - Thorin's grip tightened on the crenellations again, his shoulders hunching.

_They see a leader when they look at him, when they should follow their king._

Dain had provoked the elves - now the front ranks stood with their bows drawn, while the stout shields of the dwarves stacked upon each other, fitted together like so many stones in a wall. In the next breath, it would begin-

A sudden dark gloom of gathering clouds obscured the sky, and a chill wind swept from the top of the mountain. Lightning flashed, and with it pealed a deafening boom of thunder. From one breath to the next, the empty field between the armies of Elves, Men and Dwarves was no longer empty. A tall grey figure stood there with his staff upraised.

"Halt!" Gandalf's strident voice boomed from the field below. It was like thunder itself, and the top of his staff blazed bright as the lightning. "Dread has come upon you all, more swiftly than I'd guessed! Azog the Defiler leads an army of orcs to beset you! Stand together and face them, or fight one another and seal your doom!"

_Gandalf. The meddling old fool abandons you when it is convenient for him and reappears again with fel news - when it is convenient for him._

As if to punctuate Gandalf's words, a deep rumbling came from beneath the earth, and the cliffside near Dale broke open in a shower of stone. Thorin caught motion and turned to look - there was Azog on the Ravenhill, with a crude signal tower, and goblins boiled out in the wake of the wereworms from under the hills.

The reaction from Dain's dwarves was immediate - they changed direction, seeking to meet the filth head-on, the shield wall re-forming against the advancing goblin lines. Thorin could see no movement from the elves or the men of Dale, and a dull throb of fury pulsed through him.

"I'm going over the wall!" the voice came from his left - Kili. "Who's coming with me?"

"Stand down," Thorin said, turning away from the rampart, cutting short the cheer Kili's words had begun.

"Are we to do _nothing?_ " Fili protested.

The rage in Thorin's heart, the rage that had simmered there like an ember from the moment he'd seen Bilbo bound at his enemy's feet, roared into a flame. "I said _stand down!_ " he growled, setting his feet upon the stairs that would lead him to the bottom of the ramparts. 

_Let them fight and die. The mountain must be protected. The gold must be protected. Let your enemies and faithless opportunists perish at its feet - here you are secure._

Erebor could withstand a siege several times the size of the force he'd seen swarming on the field of battle, for many long weeks if necessary. He would wait them out here, inside the mountain, surrounded by thick stone. Thorin ignored the sound of protesting voices and the clash of battle, passing into the shadow of the mountain's darkness. The treasure was safe. He was safe.

Bilbo was not.

The thought pierced through the detachment that surrounded him, and he halted. A wave of weariness washed over him suddenly, and his hand went to his chest, palm pressed against the hard layers of armor over his heart. He had been a fool to think anything he said could save Bilbo once he was in that cursed elf's clutches. The hobbit's bravery at the gate - his loud complaining of the way he was handled, his utter disregard for the knife at his throat, his assurances that he would rescue himself - only made the sorrow twist like a constricting band around Thorin's chest. 

_You are king, you cannot spend this time in grief. There is too much at stake. The gold must be guarded, the mountain, the crown. It cannot be lost now that it is recovered._

Yet Thorin found he could not force the heaviness in his heart aside. He carried on, moving deeper into the mountain. He would not stay and listen to them squabble over his kingdom. They had not won Erebor from the dragon, only come in its wake. None but a small hobbit from the Shire had dared enter and face Smaug - and now, it seemed, he had risked himself once more for Thorin's sake.

_He delivered himself to your enemies and would have promised them your fortune._

Thorin shook his head to clear the thought from his mind. No, Bilbo had not gone to barter away what they had won. It was Bilbo all along who tried to sway him from this course, to prevent what now took place outside the mountain. It was not malice, but his soft heart and gentle spirit that drove him to try and negotiate with their foes. Thorin ached to think of how frightened he must have been when his parley turned into a prison. Unbidden, the memory of Bilbo's face at the base of the gate, the shock and the sound he'd made when the knife was laid to his throat, rose to his mind. It made the rage boil inside him anew, that Thranduil would be so cowardly as to threaten a kindly creature like Bilbo, and honorless enough to treat him with such cruelty.

Thorin did not want to dwell on it, but his thoughts would not obey. The memory played over again in his mind, from the first sight of Bilbo forced to his knees on the hard stone to his struggles as he was dumped over the back of the saddle like some kind of prize to be carted away. How had Thranduil known how deeply it would wound him, how quickly Thorin would promise _anything_ to see Bilbo safe?

And why had Bilbo looked so shocked by his agreement to pay the demanded ransom? Surely he knew that he was second to nothing, that half the gold of Erebor was rightfully his, not a meager fourteenth share. Thorin also remembered his own brief moment of hesitation when he considered the elvenking's demand, and was ashamed - he should not have thought to place anything above Bilbo's life. He would give anything for it.

_Anything? Would you trade the crown? The Arkenstone?_

Thorin shied away from that thought with a physical flinch, his steps staggering again. It was pointless to consider such questions. No matter what he agreed to, what he offered, Thranduil would only demand more and more, would never be satisfied - had probably already executed his prisoner. Thorin had to face that hard reality and stop pretending there was still hope. 

That too-brief, too-distant meeting was the last time he would ever lay eyes on Bilbo Baggins.

His steps had carried him to the throne room, where the empty space above his grandfather's throne seemed to stare at him mockingly. His kin had either failed or betrayed him, for still the Arkenstone was beyond his grasp. All that remained for him now was the crown, the mountain - the gold. Those must be protected at all cost. He would not lose anything else.

Thorin settled into the throne to wait for news of the war outside his gates.

The stone walls of Erebor felt solid and safe around him, like a vault. This far underground, Thorin could hear nothing of what transpired in the battle. It only made him shift restlessly in the throne, wondering how long it would last, wondering who would be left standing at the end to march on the mountain.

The gold was too vulnerable in the treasury. Too many pathways in the mountain led there, and many years of being Smaug's bed and plaything had scattered it in disorder even outside of the treasury's bounds. It would be too easy for a small force to sneak in and back out. Perhaps the war outside the gates was only a distraction-

The Company was at the gates. They would not let his enemies past. Would they?

_They have not found the Arkenstone. They keep it from you. They challenge your authority._

Thorin clutched the arms of the throne, shoulders tensing. A sound had broken the silence - the sound of boots on stone, steps approaching.

He emerged into the dim light of the throne room seconds after Thorin heard his step - his sister-son, his heir. Fili approached slowly, his steps measured, though there was a tension in him that Thorin greatly misliked. He did not stop at the steps below the throne, and held his chin high as he approached. He looked like he'd steeled himself for this.

"Dain's army is giving way," Fili said. His voice was tight and clipped - holding back something. His brows were knit together, his mouth pulled down. "They are pushed back to the foot of the mountain. If we do not aid them, they will fall."

_He holds himself like a king. He comes to take your throne._

"The mountain will hold," Thorin said slowly. His voice felt scratchy, and he briefly wondered how much he had shouted on the top of the gate that he had scraped it raw. "There are hundreds of passageways - we can move the gold deeper. Protect it. Yes," he said, something like purpose quickening his limbs at the thought. "Tell the others-"

"Thorin, it is not only Dain's forces that are beset," Fili interrupted. "Dale is under siege, and the men of Lake-town cannot hold Azog's forces back. There are innocent people down there. They will all die."

"Their lives mean nothing," Thorin said. "The treasure - the wealth of a nation, the power of Erebor - _that_ must be preserved."

Fili flinched, the muscles in his jaw quivering as it clenched. " _Bilbo_ is down there."

The pain of his grief roared awake anew, and Thorin rose from his throne. "Do not speak to me of the halfling," he rasped. "If you believe he is still alive now, after that _despicable_ coward learned what he meant to me, you are a fool."

"The elvenking would not risk executing his most valuable hostage," Fili protested, and now his calm was cracking on the edges. His face was drawn tight, his hands clenched white-knuckled on his sword belt. "Bilbo is still alive - he has to be! I will not believe he is lost. Will you abandon him, as you are abandoning your kin?"

_He is naive and refuses to face what he knows to be true._

"Bilbo is dead!" The shout bounced ugly and raw around the throne room. "I cannot put aside the importance of this kingdom for one life!" 

_He only sees you as the lowly refugee. He does not respect his king or the throne. He will undermine you, just as they all will._

"Do not speak to me of this as if I were still a mere dwarf lord - as if I were still Thorin _Oakenshield._ " He spat the name and it tasted foul in his mouth, coming out quivering instead of furious. He turned his face away, lifting his hand as if to ward off Fili's gaze. No longer was he that dwarf who wandered through the villages of men, supporting his people by the sweat of his back and bringing the line of Durin low. He would not carry the name that was the mark of his failure to avenge his grandfather, not now after all he had gained.

"No," Fili said, muted and desolate, all the previous fire gone from him. "If you will not stir yourself to save the one person you still care about, you are not Thorin Oakenshield."

"I am your _king!_ " Thorin roared. His sword hissed from the scabbard, swinging wide and wild. Thorin had made no conscious decision to draw it, only felt the knife of rage pierce him at being questioned. Its weight in his hand came as a surprise, one that pulled him off center.

"You are my _uncle_ ," Fili protested, even as he stepped back, making no move for his own weapons, a slight tremble in his mouth. Thorin could see the horrible pity in his eyes, and the disrespect of it galled him. 

_Even your heir turns against you, questions your judgment, tries to sway you from your duty. You have nowhere left to turn, not even to your own kin._

Fili was still speaking, although his words warred with the angry roar of Thorin's thoughts, like one faint voice almost lost amid a tempest. "You've changed. I always looked up to you, Thorin. I wanted to be just like you - I wanted to be the kind of king you were. Not the one you are. Who have you become?"

It was Thorin's turn now to reel back like the words were a blow. His hand tightened on the hilt of his sword and the motion repulsed him. He had not chosen to draw it. He did not want it in his hand. Fili was his kin. How could he wield a sword against him?

_He will take your throne. It is your birthright, it is your treasure, your crown, your mountain- kill him, he is a threat, he doubts you and your rule, he is treasonous, kill him-_

"Get out," Thorin said, forcing the words out desperately. He would not. "Get out before I kill you."

Fili swallowed thickly, and Thorin now saw that it was not pity in his eyes but sorrow, and they were wet with unshed tears. His nephew backed up a step, then another, then turned and left the throne room with slow steps and heaviness in the lines of his shoulders.

Thorin stared at the empty hall for a long time, the weight of his sword heavy in his hand. The urge was still there, a dark impulse that tightened his fingers around its hilt.

_He will return to the others, now, and tell them you cannot be persuaded - they will move against you. They will come for what is dear to you. Kill them before they have the chance._

Thorin threw the sword down violently with a ringing clang. He would not stab those who trusted him in the back, nor would he hold the throne as a kinslayer. He might be besieged on all sides, but he was not yet alone-

_You are alone. They keep their distance, they plot against you and conspire to keep your birthright from you. There was only one you could trust, and he is lost. The gold is all that matters now._

Yes. The gold. Thorin could not sit idly. If the others would not help him move it, he would do it himself, no matter how long it took.

Thorin did not remember leaving the throne room, but the next time he was aware of his surroundings, he was in a different part of Erebor, another grand hall. He stopped for a moment, confused - how much time had he lost? Had it only been minutes, or had he been wandering for longer?

The quality of the air around him seemed to change as soon as the questions surfaced in his mind. The dark of the mountain no longer felt comforting and safe, like a vault, but close and still, like a tomb. Thorin's palms itched for his sword, before remembering that he had left it beside the throne - and paired with that memory was the reason _why_ it no longer hung at his side. Shame prickled at the back of his throat. He could see Fili's face in his mind's eye as his nephew retreated from him, full of sorrow and resignation. Thorin had done that.

He kept walking, although now he was not sure of his direction or his goal. This was not the Erebor he remembered growing up in, filled with the sounds of hammer-falls, the roar of the bellows and the echo of voices and laughter. This was a ruin, a dead kingdom, long since abandoned even by the vermin that would have come in Smaug's wake - rats and mice and other scavenging creatures, picking over the leavings of their society while its people fled.

_You will make the mountain great again. The gold will see to that._

The gold. That was why he was walking this way, so he could come to the treasury.

_It must be kept safe from harm. It must be guarded._

He forced his pace to quicken, even though the urgency he felt was more akin to the prick of a pin than the stabbing, overwhelming ache he'd borne for since returning to the mountain.

_The gold-_

It was not the gold that was important, was it? Not merely the gold. The wealth of Erebor was a tool - it would be used to repair the mountain's glory. That was why it was so vital to keep from harm. It was not his personal gain, but the gain of his people that was at stake.

_The gold-_

-was there.

Warm and mirror-bright, smooth as glass, coating the floor of the passageway where they'd poured it in their vain attempt to stop the dragon. Thorin's feet slowed, and at first he was hesitant to mar its surface with the tread of his boot.

_You are the king._

He stepped out from between the towering columns, remembering how the metal had flowed molten-hot and gleaming over his enemy. Now it was settled and cold, but it glittered no less. Thorin could only stare, drinking in the sight of it.

Thorin's steps carried him to the center of the passageway, under the sole light source. The gilding on the floor looked almost tawdry in the sun, reflecting too bright after the gloom of the mountain.

It never used to be gloomy in Erebor. There was always light and the sounds of life, not solitary echoes ringing back from the stone. There had been so many dead, the day the dragon came. So many more dead along the road.

So many dead outside the mountain since Durin's Day.

_"Their lives mean nothing. The treasure - the wealth of a nation, the power of Erebor - that must be preserved."_

Thorin recoiled. Those could not have been his words, but he remembered saying them, in his voice.

_The gold must be protected._

The kingdom must be protected.

_The gold will rebuild the kingdom._

It was not - it _could_ not only be about the treasure. He had retaken his grandfather's kingdom. He would make it great again, great as it was before Smaug, before the sickness-

_"A sickness lies upon that treasure."_

Balin had tried to warn him, outside the mountain while Bilbo braved the dragon, ready to sacrifice his life for a home that was not his own. Balin's voice seemed to echo from within his head, and yet it surrounded him at the same time.

_Warn you of what? It is your kingdom. The treasure is yours to dispose of as you please._

_"-blind ambition of a mountain king-"_

Bard. The man knew all along what would come of Thorin waking the dragon, and so it had come to pass - his town burned, many of his people dead. The words were muddled with Balin's and with the other thoughts, stirring together into confusion.

_Beggars do not dictate the kingdom. They lived in the shadow of dragonfire all their short lives. You faced it. You survived._

But it had not been Thorin who crept into the mountain without knowing what laid on the other side. Was Bilbo to converse with Smaug and live to tell of it, only to die felled by a treacherous elf - or worse, a random sword in the melee, no reason or purpose behind it?

_He chose his fate. He left the mountain. He knew what he was to you-_

Did he? Thorin remembered every moment he saw Bilbo at the foot of Erebor's gates, every time their gazes found each other and he saw a plea in Bilbo's face. He remembered the sheer disbelief that swept over it when Thorin accepted that coward's ransom demand. Did Bilbo truly not know what Thorin would do for him?

_"This gold is ours, and ours alone."_

Bilbo had never wanted the gold. He had tried to trade his share away to barter peace.

_He tried to give away what you worked to take back!_

_"I will not part with a single coin."_

Was that again his voice? Thorin did not recognize himself in it, dark and growling.

_"He cannot see beyond his own desire!"_

Bard had helped them, even though he staunchly opposed their quest.

_He tried to stop you. He argued against you. Now he comes for what is yours._

The bowman had only tried to do his best by his people, even when they were not his people to rule. Thorin knew what it was to give his all to a nation that saw him with resentment and disregard.

_"-as if I were a mere dwarf lord... Thorin Oakenshield."_

_You are no longer so meager._

Thorin stopped in the middle of the sun shaft. He had never thought himself _meager_ or _lowly._ He was of the line of Durin, king or no.

_"A sickness that drove your grandfather mad!"_

Balin had been there to witness it. He, too, had seen how low Thror fell in the latter days of his rule, how he lost himself in madness and greed.

Thorin's feet were heavy, like they were smelted to the floor. The rush of voices were overlapping each other, growing louder and more strident. He clenched his hands slowly - his body's responses felt sluggish.

_Thror succumbed to weakness. You are a stronger king than he was._

It was not weakness, it was sickness.

_I am not my grandfather._

_"You are heir to the throne of Durin."_

Gandalf had set his feet on this path in the first place - the mountain had been an unreachable dream until the key and the map. It was Gandalf, too, who had found their burglar. Thorin had been convinced from the start that he would eventually have to bear the guilt of Bilbo's death.

_"Dain's army is giving way. Bilbo is down there. They will all die."_

Fili - out of all those who could have come to convince him, it was his heir, the one he had thought he could no longer trust, who came to beg him to take action. Fili, who would never give up as long as there was a chance Bilbo was still alive.

When had Thorin surrendered to despair?

_"Take back your homeland."_

Gandalf had given him purpose, but it was hope that drove them, his resolve that Erebor would no longer sit under Smaug's claws. And, thanks in large part to Bilbo, it no longer did.

The clamor of remembered words and his own thoughts died away until one solitary voice remained, clear as a bell.

_"It's all right, Thorin! Don't worry about me! I can rescue myself!"_

Even as a prisoner, bruised and bound and treated like so much baggage, Bilbo's concern was for Thorin.

_He stole away in the darkness of night to strike a bargain without consulting his king._

But he was not Bilbo's king. Bilbo owed no allegiance to the kingdom of Erebor - he was not here for gold or glory. He was here because he cared, because he had given his word that he would help them reclaim their home, and he would keep it to the best of his ability.

Thorin had given his word, too.

_"Is this treasure truly worth more than your honor?"_

How had he not heard the sorrow there in Bilbo's voice? How had he seen that as anything other than an attempt to prevent needless bloodshed? Was he so consumed by pride that he had forgotten what it meant to keep his promise?

_"I wanted to be the kind of king you were, not the kind of king you are. Who have you become?"_

Fili's words still pierced him to the quick, even disembodied and echoing as they were. Who had he become? He was Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, King Under the Mountain - but what kingdom did he rule? Piles of bone and ash, empty halls and crumbling stone.

_I am not my grandfather._

The golden floor shone brilliantly, but it was a cold light, hard and unyielding, and in the mirror-bright surface Thorin could see himself. His grandfather's cloak swallowed his form, the armor further obscuring it.

There came a sound from behind him - the sound of claws and scale on stone. He turned with a clank of heavy armor, his heart thudding against his ribs. The dragon was dead - he had seen it fall. It could not be here.

A long, sinuous shadow moved beneath the surface of the gold as if what Thorin stood upon was only a film over a molten river below. Thorin recoiled from it violently - it was _not there_ , he knew that with certainty, but he could see the end of a dragon's tail curl around the place where his feet stood.

Madness.

_"If you will not stir yourself to save the one person you still care about, you are not Thorin Oakenshield."_

Fili had seen it. Balin had seen it. Gandalf had warned him not to enter the mountain. Bilbo had seen it - had been so convinced that Thorin was lost, he took matters into his own hands, and paid the price for it.

He had failed. He had come so far, and won so much, and yet on the threshold of his victory, Thorin had failed to defeat the sickness - had instead let it consume him and drive him to greed and despair.

_I am not my grandfather._

The floor felt unsteady under his feet, like the surface of it bowed and the molten river beneath opened up to swallow him whole. It was fitting that he should fall here, amid the echo of his failure to slay the dragon, that the gold he had been so blinded by should be his doom.

_Stay inside the mountain where you will be safe._

That growling, sibilant voice jolted him, like he had been doused under cold water. That was not him. Would he hole himself up and do nothing while his cousin fought for his kingdom?

_Stay with the treasure._

How had he ever thought that was his own voice? It was cruel and predatory and it whispered poison into his mind. It was the treasure that would be his undoing, just as it had been to his father and his grandfather before him. It had not been him alone that braved the dangers of the quest, and yet he had not trusted the loyalty of his own kin - had not even listened to the one voice of reason he _could_ trust.

How many memories did he have of his father trudging back to the royal wing, weariness on his brow and heaviness in his limbs, after he had once more been to the treasury, trying to convince Thror to sit upon his throne and see to his kingdom? How many times had Thorin watched his grandfather's meandering steps across that sea of gold with foreboding crawling up his spine?

Fili had looked so like Thrain in the throne room.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the gold again, even as it felt as if he drowned in it. For a split second, under the raven crown and the heavy cloak and all the golden armor, Thorin saw his grandfather's face instead of his own.

_I am not my grandfather._

Thorin wrenched the crown from his head and threw it away, breathing hard, sweat prickling at the back of his neck and the palms of his hands. The sound of it hitting the gold produced a sharp ringing, sweetly seductive. He retreated from it, as if the crown held in it all the madness that had plagued him. That hissing voice in the back of his mind, the one that told him the gold was all that mattered, the one that had urged him to strike down his own nephew, was blessedly silent. 

He shed the cloak, leaving it in a heap as he stepped off the mirrored surface of the gold. The gilded gauntlets clattered to the stone, followed by the pauldrons. He shed the armor as if he was shedding a skin - it would only serve to hinder his movements and draw attention to him on the battlefield. He did not need it.

Before, he had wandered through the darkness of the mountain with shuffling steps, pulled by the draw of the treasury. Now, he chose his own course, swiftly moving through passageways he remembered in his heart.

In the throne room, he came upon his fallen sword. For a moment, his fingers refused to close around its hilt - it did not feel right to wield this again when he had drawn it against his family. Reluctantly, he picked it up, the blade rasping against the stone floor. If he survived this day, he would lay it aside and take up a new weapon, one that wasn't tainted with foul memories.

All that remained now was to face his Company.

The shame that coursed through him was thick enough to curdle his blood. His memories of the days since they had entered the mountain were unclear and jumbled, but what he could recall was disgraceful. It was well that he no longer wore the crown, for he did not deserve to.

If it came to it, if they were no longer willing to stand with him in battle, they could remain as the rear guard and protect the entrance into Erebor. Thorin would not begrudge them. They had followed him even when they should not have, and they were free to choose not to come with him now.

As he drew closer to the gate, the sounds of the battle began to filter back to him - shouts and the ringing clash of steel on steel came first, then the quieter sounds of armor clanking and the treads of many booted feet, and finally as Thorin drew within sight of the company, the soft twang of bowstrings and the hiss of arrows.

Kili was on his feet as soon as Thorin came into sight, his shoulders thrown back and his face set, his drawn sword held tightly in his hand. "I will not hide behind a wall of stone while others fight our battles for us!" he cried, fierce and strident, his clenched fist striking his breast in emphasis. Anger sharpened his movements and deepened his scowl. A chilling thought chased through the back of Thorin's mind - if it had been Kili who come to him in the throne room, would he have been able to stay his hand when his madness compelled him to strike? Kili's jaw clenched when he received no answer, and he forced the next words out through gritted teeth. "It is not in my blood, Thorin," he said, his voice breaking.

Thorin approached him slowly, giving him plenty of time to back away, but Kili stood his ground even though Thorin could see wariness in his gaze. His throat grew tight at the sight of boisterous, cheerful Kili cowed merely by Thorin's _presence_. He had done this, just as he had caused the sorrow in Fili and just as he had driven Bilbo toward a desperate gamble.

"No," he rasped. "It is not." Hope bloomed over Kili's face, and Thorin settled a hand on his shoulder, filled with pride in his sister-sons. "We are sons of Durin, and Durin's folk do not flee from a fight."

He smiled for what felt like the first time in days, and Kili cautiously returned it, though his lip quivered. Thorin drew him close, pressing their foreheads together. Kili gripped his arm in return, relief in every line of his features.

Thorin drew away and walked past him to the others, who watched him in silence. He would not burden them by asking their forgiveness now - indeed, he did not deserve it, after the poor figure he had made of himself. "I have no right to ask this of any of you," he said, "but will you follow me one last time?"

It was if they had only been waiting for him to ask. His Company picked up their weapons, still close at hand. Fili's swords hissed out of their sheaths. Balin pushed himself to his feet, moving slowly to where Thorin stood, his smile crinkling his eyes at the corners.

"Thorin, lad," he said. "It's good to have you back."

"It's good to be back," Thorin said, and then looked up at the wall of tumbled stone that blocked the gate. "Now - any ideas as to how we get rid of that? I doubt there is a battering ram large or strong enough to simply knock it down."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Bofur said, a wide grin lighting up his features as he stared up at the ceiling. 

Thorin followed the path of his gaze and couldn't help but let out a small laugh. The great golden bell was vivid in his childhood memories, and he well remembered the full-bodied sound of it tolling the hour. "Do you think we would be able to draw it back far enough?"

"Aye, if the pull chain is still there and we make good use of the scaffolding," Bofur said. "We can haul it up past the apex - let it go and it'll smash right through easy as you please."

Luck was with them - the chain, though slightly rusted, was still whole and strong. The stone scaffolding, meant to reach the crossbeam where the bell hung in case repairs were needed, was also whole and still mostly safe to climb.

Bofur scrambled up the scaffold at an improbable speed, sure-footed as a goat, with the end of the chain in his hand. Ori and Nori followed with Dori right behind them, the latter puffing admonishments at how fast his brothers climbed. Gloin went up next, with Dwalin and Bifur bringing up the rear.

Bombur made to follow them, but Balin caught him by the shoulder. "Not you, lad. We'll need someone to sound the charge," he said, and Bombur's cheeks went a little pink above his beard at being chosen for the honor. Balin directed him up a small stair beside the gate and returned to the company, hefting his axe.

"Oin, once we break through the gate I want you to take Bombur and go straight for where the healers are stationing themselves," Thorin said. "You'll both be more valuable there than you will be on the battlefield."

Oin grumbled something unfavorable under his breath - something about not being dead yet - but nodded his agreement and tucked his ear trumpet down the front of his armor.

"Ready?" Bofur called. He stood on the crossbeam as if it were solid ground, apparently unbothered by the height of the drop below his feet. The others were arranged behind him at various stages on the scaffold.

"Be careful," Thorin called back. "Haul it up, but wait for the horn call to release."

"Alright lads! Keep your footing steady, it's a long way down - and, heave!"

The pull chain rattled, and there was a resounding clang from the clapper as it hit the inside of the bell. The chain it was suspended from groaned, and Bofur glanced up at the connecting joist almost in the same moment Thorin did.

"Back up," Thorin said, and those dwarves remaining on the ground backed away from the area just below the bell, eyeing it warily.

"Keep it up!" Bofur said, voice straining from the effort. At the apex of the pull, Bofur served as the guide, ensuring that it was hauled in the right direction. Dori served as the anchor, last on the line - he was the strongest, and if anyone slipped he would keep them from losing progress. Little by little, the bell came closer to where they needed it. 

Thorin's hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. On either side of him stood Fili and Kili, just as ready as he was to make a stand. He reached out and wrapped his free hand around the back of Fili's neck, drawing him close to knock their foreheads together gently, as he'd done with Kili. "Thank you," he murmured. "I don't think I would have come back to myself if it weren't for your words."

"You would have," Fili said. "I have no doubt."

Thorin wasn't sure he agreed, but that was a discussion to have another day. He pulled away and picked up a round buckler, fitting it onto his arm. The bell was in position, the dwarves red-faced with the strain of holding it ready. 

"Now, Bombur!" Thorin called.

The blast of the horn rang out across the battlefield, and the bell swung forward, hitting the stone with a ringing clang. Bofur scrambled down from the crossbeam and the others descended the scaffold just as quickly, recovering their weapons.

"With me!" Thorin shouted. The bell swung back toward them, a rushing wall of solid gold that passed over their heads with a rush of wind. Thorin broke into a run, remembering how the joist at the top of the bell's chain had groaned when they hauled it.

The broken stone made for bad footing, but Thorin's blood was rushing in his ears, and he ran sure-footed across it with a wild yell rising from his chest. His booted feet pounded the earth. The battle cries of his nephews rang in his ears on either side. The battlefield was a seething beast of blood-soaked dirt, but the lines stood apart for the moment.

Dain's army parted before him, and Thorin did not stop. 

Faintly, he heard Dain. "To the King!" 

His attention sharpened on the line of orcs before him. Calm settled into his mind. Sound seemed to fall away from him save for the thudding of his heart and the heave of his breath. He let loose a roar that shaped itself into a war cry, and then he was on them.

His sword bit deep into the first orc's chest. Thorin stepped over the body. Kili's blade flashed in the corner of his eye, cutting down an enemy to his right. Fili was on his left, striking swiftly with both swords. Thorin struck overhand, a powerful blow that slit the throat of his foe and sprayed black blood across the front of his tunic.

As they advanced, they cleared a space around them. Their enemies were wary, faced with fierce, fresh opponents. The orcs milled around, attacking singly, no discipline among their ranks. Thorin struck out with his shield, stunning one that came too near and running it through. His focus was on his movements, no stroke of the sword wasted, conserving his energy. This would be a long battle - the host before them was large, and bent on their blood. As unorganized as they were, the sheer numbers threatened to turn the tide regardless of how many skilled warriors were on the field.

He caught a flash of shocking red hair and heard the meaty thud of a warhammer hitting flesh. "Dain!"

"Thorin!" Dain called back, his hammer swinging in a wide arc. "Hold on! I'm coming!"

There were a handful of orcs between them, and Thorin bent his sword strokes in that direction, cutting his way through the line to reach his cousin. He wrenched his sword free of an orc's ribcage and turned with the momentum, opening another from collarbone to hip. Dain leapt on one of the orcs' backs and took it to the ground, striking it squarely on the skull like a blacksmith strikes an anvil.

"Cousin!" Dain said, throwing his arms wide with a grin. "What took you so long?"

Thorin laughed and stepped into the embrace, pounding him hard on the back with his shield hand, his sword held at the ready. Enough corpses lay at their feet that those orcs who fought around them seemed hesitant to approach, but they would get over that shortly.

"There's too many of these buggers, Thorin." Dain waved his hand at the battlefield - Thorin could see that they'd made a dent in the orcs around them, but only that. "I hope you've got a plan."

For one long, aching moment, Thorin's gaze rested on Dale, its streets under siege. Bilbo was there, if he was anywhere at all. He tore himself away from his longing to go to the ruin himself and raised his eyes to Ravenhill. "Aye," he said. "I'm going to take out their leader."

"Azog?"

There was a war ram nearby, trailing its reins, evidence of the fate of its last rider. Thorin grabbed its bridle and swung onto its back. "Fili! Kili!" he called.

They fought an arm's length apart. Kili cleaved the head clean from the shoulders of an orc that stood between him and his brother. Fili spun with deadly grace, both swords moving seamlessly with each other and his hair flying golden around his face. Kili grabbed his shoulder and pulled, yanking him in the direction of two more wandering mounts.

Dwalin, fighting nearby, saw them going and swung his ax in a wide, mighty arc. It cleared two orcs from in front of him with one blow, and then he was riding toward Thorin on another ram.

Thorin grabbed Fili's arm when the two of them came up beside him. "Take your brother to Dale and find Bilbo," he said.

"We should be with you," Kili protested.

"I must know he is safe," Thorin said, still holding Fili's eyes.

Fili nodded. "Where will you be?"

Thorin set his jaw, looking back up at the signal flags on Ravenhill. "I'm going to kill that piece of filth," Thorin growled.

Dain drew up beside him, reining in a war ram that shifted restlessly. "You're not going without me," he said, forestalling all argument. "You'll need another warrior up there."

Thorin cast around the battlefield and spotted Balin not far away, laying about with his great-axe and opening up a sizeable clearing around himself. "Balin, you have command!" He called.

Balin looked up, saw them, and locked eyes with his brother for a moment. He grimaced and nodded sharply - Thorin could tell he wanted to come, but he was the most experience warrior of Thorin's company, and he belonged here if the king was to be absent.

"Lead on!" Dwalin cried.

Thorin shared one long look with each of his nephews, trying not to think about what might come for any of them. Then he kicked his mount into motion, Dain and Dwalin on either side. They pierced Azog's forces like an arrow, riding for the Ravenhill and cutting down orcs in their wake. Each movement of the signal towers above him fed the fury in his breast. Azog would not escape him this time. This would be the last time the Pale Orc ever menaced Durin's folk.

As he cut and swung, gripped the reins and squeezed his knees to stay in the saddle, Thorin spared a thought for Bilbo, and tried to hope that they would meet again after this day was done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again thanks to my two wonderful betas, who were very patient with all my waffling over word choice and hanging over their shoulders while they edited.


	3. Chapter 3

Shouts, ringing steel, and screams carried distantly over the air of Dale. Bilbo was going to pace a groove in the stone floor. He twisted the edges of his coat in his hands, scowling. It would serve him right if he spent the whole battle trapped in here, but the thought of what must be taking place outside these walls gave him the chills all down his spine.

Dain's arrival had heralded a spike in the tension between the armies - according to what the scout told him, a volley had actually flown from the elves before Gandalf interrupted the whole thing. Bilbo was _immeasurably_ cross that he'd spent the whole spectacle face-down across a saddle, if only because he couldn't see the look on Dain and Thranduil's faces when Gandalf stopped them both in their tracks with his little display of lightning and thunder.

His escort had met up with his partner outside the small room where Bilbo slept the night before. Enough relentless badgering - and the kind of borderline-hysterical histrionics he would be perfectly ashamed of engaging in if the situation weren't so dire - convinced the elves to untie him and return Sting, but any attempt to convince them he would be better off _not_ being held prisoner in a city under siege were fruitless. The elf maid in particular seemed heartily sick of him, and Bilbo was not willing to bet that she would tolerate more of his complaining rather than truss him up and toss him somewhere conveniently hidden.

Bilbo wanted desperately to slip on the ring, but these two were clever - they had already seen him appear from thin air once, if he disappeared into the same they would surely suspect there was something out of the ordinary about him. Bilbo did not want Thranduil to get wind of anything else the elvenking might want to leverage against either him or Thorin.

That was not even considering the Arkenstone, still heavy in his pocket. So far it seemed to have done Thorin good to be separated from it. What would happen if he brought it near again in the heat of battle? Would it start to work its evil on him again, or did it need to be inside the mountain? It was the heart of the mountain - perhaps, removed from Erebor, it didn't pose as much of a threat.

 _Or perhaps he still has them all in there looking for it, while we fight._ Bilbo scowled at that uncharitable thought - Thorin might be ill, but he wasn't so ill that he would linger in his halls while there was a good battle to be fought - and Azog was here. If Thorin wasn't making directly for the orc that had killed his grandfather like he was drawn on a lead, Bilbo would eat his shirt. Which was beginning to sound appetizing, actually, since he hadn't been able to eat anything with the battle on!

Bilbo stuck his head out the door. The streets were still empty, but Bilbo didn't particularly care whether they were _directly_ under attack. He needed to know what was happening with the dwarves in the mountain, which meant he needed a vantage point from which to see. "I don't suppose either of you have changed your minds?" he asked, glaring at both of his elvish prison guards in turn. 

Neither elf answered him. The elf maid eyed him sidelong with a calculating glitter in her blue eyes, like she was wondering if the end of a small annoyance was worth risking her king's wrath.

"Is it just me, or does it sound like they're getting closer?" Bilbo leaned further out the door. The noise of battle was growing, and he swallowed hard. There was sure to be a good deal of ugliness in the near future, and he must brace himself for it. He drew Sting - what had been a very faint tinge of blue toward the beginning of the battle was now a steady glow. "They're coming."

The elves glanced down at him. The archer freed his bow, and the elf maid drew a long sword from the sheath at her waist. "Stay behind us," she said. "King Thranduil did not want you harmed."

"Oh, I like that," Bilbo grumbled, looking up and down the street for signs of the oncoming enemy. "Didn't want me harmed, and still had a knife on my throat at the gate."

The archer coughed slightly and then stiffened, drawing his bow to point down the street. Bilbo braced himself, Sting held at the ready.

The orcs had indeed made it into the city's interior, but they were not unopposed. A group of them tumbled out of an alley at the end of the road, and in their midst was Gandalf, laying about with staff and sword alike. Behind him came Bard and a small company of men - they cleared the end of the street in short order and came running to where Bilbo and his guards stood.

"It is not safe for you to remain here," Bard said. "Dale will be overrun. We have sent the women and children to take refuge in the strongest building yet standing - the Great Hall. It would be best if you joined them there."

"I will not run away and hide!" Bilbo said.

"I don't doubt your bravery," Bard said, his face grave. "But there are too many of them. I fear we will not survive this day."

As if it was heralded by his words, the blare of a horn echoed out across the city, full-throated and low. "Thorin," Bilbo whispered, sure in his heart that the call came from the mountain. He ran toward a nearby stair, ignoring surprised shouts from behind him, and clambered up the ruined steps to a bridge over one of the lower streets.

He was just in time to see the stone barricade of Erebor's gates crumble under the force of a great blow, the toll of a bell ringing through the air. From the depths of the mountain, the Company came at a run, Thorin in the lead.

Gandalf was at his side, leaning on his staff. Behind him were the elven scouts, scowling at them both.

"The dwarves!" Bilbo said excitedly. "The dwarves are rallying!"

"They are rallying to their king," Gandalf said, a smile on his lips. "We may yet survive this."

Bilbo clutched at the bridge's low wall with the hand that was not still wrapped around Sting's hilt. He knew that by the time he made it out of the city, Thorin would already have moved on somewhere else on the battlefield, but it did not feel right for him to stand here while his friends were in peril. He could only see glimpses of some of them, but Thorin constantly drew his gaze, his sword flashing in the sunlight.

"Gandalf, look!" he said, as Thorin swung into the saddle of one of the great rams Dain's army had brought.

"Thorin, and Fili and Kili, Dwalin - and Dain rides with them," Gandalf said. "He's taking his best warriors."

"No, they're splitting up," Bilbo said. Fili and Kili separated from the others, turning toward Dale and fighting their way through the mass. "Where is Thorin going?"

"To cut the head off the snake," Gandalf said. 

"Then why wouldn't they go with him?" Bilbo watched Thorin's course through the battlefield with his heart in his throat - he was too far away to _do_ anything. 

Gandalf looked down at Bilbo. "I believe Fili and Kili are coming to find you."

"For pity's sake, Gandalf," Bilbo said, only barely holding back an undignified snort. "I do wish you'd stop being ridiculous."

Both of Gandalf's eyebrows raised so far they were lost in the shadow of his hat. "My dear hobbit," he said. "Thorin just agreed to pay half his kingdom's fortune to ensure you were safe from harm. If you still don't see the value you hold for him after that, I am quite uncertain as to what to tell you."

The back of Bilbo's neck was burning, so he knew that he had flushed red from the tips of his ears to the top of his chest. "Yes, well," he said, and coughed. He was still trying very hard not to think about what that meant, if only because there was no _time_ for such things now, and it was useless to get his hopes up anyway.

"Well?" Gandalf cleared his throat meaningfully, still watching the small figures of Fili and Kili riding toward the gates of Dale.

Bilbo glanced between the wizard and the elves. Gandalf gave him a very subtle nod. 

_You meddling old wizard,_ Bilbo thought, and flashed him a cheeky grin, turning away from the edge of the bridge to his two reluctant jail keepers. "I beg your pardon," he said. "This will land you in trouble, but it can't be helped - and I'm certain you'd be more useful helping with the fighting than guarding me."

With that, he took off in a flat-out run across the bridge. He didn't look back at the small boom from behind him, like a miniature of the thunderclaps from before. Gandalf hurried along behind him, his robes billowing. "The spots will clear from their eyes in a few moments," he said. "We do not have much time."

"I must get to them," Bilbo said. "If they are coming to find me, they will be riding right into a mess of orcs!"

"The dwarves are warriors! They have been fighting for years, Bilbo - you are not safe here!" Gandalf easily kept up with him, hefting his staff. They rounded the first corner they came to and headed for Dale's gates, where they were sure to find Fili and Kili.

"It's a war - nobody is safe," Bilbo said. "I will not stay in the Great Hall fretting myself into a mess of nerves until the orcs knock down the door! I-erk."

Bilbo's tirade cut itself short when he rounded a corner and spotted two elves at the end of the street. He flattened himself against a building - for a moment, he mistook them for the two scouts. The elf maid's hair was the wrong color, though, and when she finally turned around, Bilbo recognized her face.

Gandalf recognized her companion as well, for he called, "Legolas! Legolas Greenleaf!"

The two elves startled, but hastened over to them. Legolas nodded very briefly to Gandalf. "I must find my father," he said. "I have no time to waste. There is a second army - Bolg leads a force of Gundabad orcs. They are almost upon us."

Bilbo had never seen Gandalf afraid, but he looked truly worried now. "That was their plan all along - Azog engages our forces, then Bolg sweeps in from the north," the wizard said, his brow creased with frown lines.

"What?" Bilbo was not entirely certain of his cardinal directions at any given moment, but it was still not quite noon, and he certainly remembered which direction the sun rose. "Th-the north? Where is the north, exactly?" he asked, although dread had already knotted itself in his stomach.

"Ravenhill," Gandalf said, confirming his suspicions, and he broke out into a cold sweat.

"Thorin is up there," he said, barely a whisper. "Hurry - we must find Fili and Kili. We must get to Thorin before he walks straight into a trap!"

"Kili is here?" the red-haired elf asked, looking alarmed. "I thought he was in the mountain!"

"You missed the rallying charge," Bilbo said. "They've joined the battle now - Kili and his brother were riding toward Dale, last I saw them."

"We must find them!" she cried. "The streets are nearly overrun!" Before anyone could stop her, she ran down an alley in the direction of the city's gate.

"Tauriel!" Legolas shouted, and then hesitated, looking torn. "I must warn my father of the reinforcements."

"I will go with you," Gandalf said. "Thranduil must know what's coming." He frowned down at Bilbo. "You should-"

"I should be with Thorin," Bilbo said firmly.

"Don't be ridiculous, you'll never make it," Gandalf insisted.

"And why not?" Bilbo asked, puffing up with indignation. He had done very well for himself on this adventure, thank you!

"Because they will see you coming and kill you!" Gandalf said, and Bilbo stopped short of a tirade - the wizard was worried for him. Still, he had tricks up his sleeve even Gandalf didn't know about.

"No, they won't. They won't see me."

"It is out of the question. I won't allow it!" Gandalf drew himself up, seeming to grow taller and more imposing. 

From anyone else, that might have set Bilbo off all over again, but he only smiled crookedly. "I'm not asking you to allow it, Gandalf," he said, and broke into a run after Tauriel, slipping on the ring as he went. Immediately, a gray gloom descended on the world, washing out the colors and muting the sounds.

He followed the trailing glimpse of Tauriel's hair, less a shocking red than a bloody maroon while he was in this strange in-between place. She moved with grace, always ten steps ahead of him and almost out of sight. Bilbo was sorely out of breath, lagging farther and farther behind. The sounds of shouts and clashing steel grew louder as he ran, and Bilbo tightened his grip on Sting.

He was so concentrated on running that he nearly ran into Tauriel as she stopped and crouched at the end of an alley. He scrambled to keep his balance and ended up bracing himself on the wall near her - she glanced around with a tiny frown, but when she didn't see him, she turned her attention to the street at the mouth of the alley.

Fili and Kili fought atop their war rams, backed up against a crumbling stone wall. Fili was grim-faced and silent, holding onto his mount with his knees as he fought with both swords. Kili, on the other hand, had a fierce grin on his lips and shouted insults at the enemy as he cut them down. They were making a good showing for themselves - half a dozen orcs lay dying in a half-circle around them - but there were more of the enemy than they could fight on their own.

Tauriel moved slow and silent, fitting an arrow to the string. Bilbo watched her, fascinated - she had drawn several arrows from her quiver and held them in her draw hand all at once. In a single, fluid movement, she rose to her feet, pulled the string back to her ear, and loosed. The second arrow was on the string a split second later - if Bilbo had not watched her do it, he never would have believed that an archer could shoot that quickly. Four orcs fell dead before the enemy could pinpoint her location. Some of the orcs surrounding Fili and Kili finally discovered the new threat and turned to charge their position. Tauriel stared them down coolly, drawing another few arrows from her quiver. 

Bilbo slipped around her and out of the alley, the whispering of phantom winds much louder in his ears than the twang of her bowstring or the dying screams ringing through the streets. The orcs seemed to move through molasses - it was simple for Bilbo to step up to the end of the charging line and jab Sting into the back of an attacker's knee. The orc howled and collapsed, looking around fruitlessly for its attacker. Bilbo gritted his teeth and yanked Sting's blade across its throat, his stomach rebelling at the feel of flesh parting under his sword. He swallowed hard and held the bile down. This was not the first orc he had accounted for along their journey, and it would hardly be the last.

 _Worry about your delicate sensibilities later,_ he told himself. _You can have some wonderful, indulgent hysterics once this is all over and everyone is safe._

The sound of hooves echoed around him, and Bilbo flattened himself against the wall - Fili rode by so close he could feel a rush of wind, his ram's head lowered, and smashed through the orcs like they were parchment. His mount bucked and plunged - a kick with its back feet sent an orc flying to smash against the wall with a sickening crunch. Bilbo pulled off the ring, blinking rapidly to re-orient himself at the sudden rush of color and noise.

"Tauriel!" Kili said, swinging his sword overhead. He cleaved through the back of the last orc, leaving it to fall at the elf-maid's feet like a grisly trophy. "What are you doing here?"

"Reinforcements," Tauriel said. "Bolg leads an army on the Ravenhill."

"We must tell Thorin," Bilbo added, and had the satisfaction of watching both dwarves startle.

"Bilbo! I didn't see you," Fili said, grinning wryly like he'd just made a joke. "It's good that we found you so quickly. Uncle will be pleased to know you're safe."

"Safe," Bilbo said, with a snort. "I'm no more safe here than I would be out there, especially not with an army bearing down on us from the north! There's no time to waste - we must go to Thorin."

Fili's wry grin faded into a hesitant frown, and he leaned on the pommel of his saddle to bring himself closer to Bilbo. "You should stay in the city," he said. "There are plenty of out of the way places where you could-"

"Could what?" Bilbo snapped, thoroughly sick of this. "Could hide? Could cower in the dark like a child while you are out there risking your lives?"

"It's too dangerous for you to be in battle," Fili said.

"Oh! Too dangerous." Bilbo was working himself into a proper fury, now. "The war is too dangerous - as opposed to stalling for time with the trolls, or escaping the goblin caves without being eaten, or saving Thorin's life, or rescuing _all_ of you from the dungeons in Mirkwood-"

"I would like to hear how you managed that, one day," Tauriel murmured from behind him, but Bilbo was too irate to be interrupted.

"-That's all not to _mention_ walking into the mountain by myself to face down a dragon. But no, I can see how all of those things would pale in comparison to a lot of orcs." He finished with a savage glare up at Fili, who to his satisfaction looked helplessly back at his brother for support.

"Bilbo can ride with me," Kili said, quite the opposite of the help Fili had silently been asking for. His jaw was set stubbornly, and he stared his brother down until Fili made a face and looked away.

"Thank you, Kili," Bilbo said. "At least one of you has sense."

"You're going to think back on today and be appalled that you said that about my brother," Fili said, plainly giving up on the argument. "Lady Tauriel, can we expect reinforcements from the elves?"

Tauriel hesitated. "I don't know," she said finally, reluctant. "I don't want to believe King Thranduil will turn away, but I am no longer welcome in the Greenwood and cannot call him my king. Legolas and Gandalf went to deliver him the news - but I believe it is only the four of us."

"Then we have no time to waste," Fili said.

Kili reached down and hoisted Bilbo up into the saddle. It was a much better experience than being atop a horse. For one thing, the ram was closer to the ground, built much more like a pony, and Bilbo could fit comfortably in front of Kili in the saddle. For another, he was not slung on his belly, and he had his sword. Then Kili turned to Tauriel and paused. "How will you keep up with us? You're too tall for the rams, and a horse can't make the footing up the hill."

Tauriel considered the ram with her lips pursed for a long moment, then shook her head. "We're out of time," she said. "Go ahead of me - I will find my own way."

"Tauriel!" Kili shouted, but it was too late - she was already clambering up the side of a crumbling building. Tauriel balanced precariously on a rooftop for a moment before leaping with her arms outstretched. Bilbo's heart flew into his throat, but she caught hold of a ledge and vaulted over gracefully, moving across the ruined rooftops like a swift bird of green and red.

"Something tells me that Tauriel will be just fine," Bilbo said. "Now, _please._ We must get to Thorin."

"Come on, Kili," Fili said, and kicked his ram into motion. With one more backward glance at Tauriel - who was using Dale's architecture as her road north toward Ravenhill - Kili followed his brother.

"How is Thorin?" Bilbo asked, once they had thundered out of the gates of Dale and had a bit of breathing room before they hit the battlefield proper.

"Back to himself," Kili said. "Just after they pulled you away from the gate, it was like he'd completely given up. He told us not to fight and disappeared into the mountain. Fili went to have words with him. He still won't tell me what happened, only that he came back shaken and told us Thorin was beyond help. It wasn't that long afterward that Thorin came back to the gate. He'd taken off the crown and great-grandfather's armor, and he was..." Kili trailed off, like he was searching for the right words, and finally finished with, "It was like he was alive again."

The tight knot of dread in Bilbo's stomach loosened, and he couldn't help but let out a short, bright laugh. "Oh, I was so afraid," he said. "If Thorin was out here fighting in that condition he's been in, he wouldn't last five minutes." His spirits lifted like they were borne up on a cloud.

"He's going to be furious when he sees you, you know," Kili said. "He wanted us to make sure you were safe."

"How could I be safer in a city under siege than I could be fighting beside you?" Bilbo asked. "At least this way we can protect each other."

"You won't hear any argument from me," Kili said. "I know what it feels like to be left behind."

Fili glanced back at him, but said nothing - they were coming to the battlefield now, and while the orcs hadn't appeared to notice them yet, that would change quickly. "Brace yourselves!" Fili called.

"Don't overbalance trying to stab something," Kili warned Bilbo. "Your reach is shorter than mine. Just skewer any fingers that try to grab onto the saddle."

"All right," Bilbo said, squeezing Sting's hilt tightly in his hand and winding the fingers of his other hand through the ram's shaggy mane.

They hit the back of the orcs' ragged line with a bone-jarring crack of the ram's horns. The orc they'd hit fell under their mount's hooves, and Kili's sword was already in motion. Bilbo hunkered down in the saddle, trying to make himself a smaller target than he was already.

He had expected the confusion, the constant motion, not knowing which way was forward. He held on tight to the ram and to his sword, Kili's yells in his ears. What he hadn't expected was the smell - the field was slick with blood, and the smell of it wafted through the air, both the coppery tang from the dwarves and the rancid stench of orc blood. The noise, too, was different than he'd anticipated. There was the sound of weapons clashing, but there was also the crack of breaking bone, shouts of alarm, and the chilling screams of the dying. A shudder traveled down Bilbo's spine, and he thanked his lucky stars he was not alone out here.

The ram beneath him heaved forward against the orc line, and Kili's sword darted for their unprotected backs, deftly seeking out gaps in their armor. They took the enemy by surprise, and the orcs found themselves caught between the princes and Dain's army with nowhere to turn. One of the orcs shouted something in their foul language, and they moved to try and surround the two war rams. Kili's mount reared, and Bilbo yelped, clinging to the saddle as it struck out with both forehooves, then bucked and kicked with the back legs as well. The orcs fell back, wary once more.

"Balin!" Fili was calling, as he fought his way through the line. His right arm was coated in black blood from shoulder to wrist, and his bellow carried over the sounds of battle like he'd practiced it.

"Here, lad!" a familiar voice called, and then there was a grunt and the sound of a weapon thudding into flesh and bone. Bilbo risked a glance over Kili's arm and saw Balin swinging a double-headed war ax of improbable size, the haft probably as long as he was tall. The bodies of his enemies lay at his feet, and Dain's army was formed up around him. 

Dori was there too, laying about with a massive warhammer like it weighed nothing, his braids askew around his face. An orc loomed behind him, and as Bilbo opened his mouth to shout a warning a knife flew through the air with a wicked hiss, embedding itself in the orc's eye socket. Bilbo's eyes followed its trajectory back to Nori, who paused only a moment to ensure that his eldest brother was alright before setting his back against Ori's again. Ori elbowed his brother and said something that was lost over the noise of the fighting, and Bilbo saw Nori's face break into a savage grin.

Bilbo searched the seething mass of striving fighters even as he kept half an eye on their saddle, mindful of his own task. He found Gloin, laughing as he fought, bellowing insults in time with the strokes of his ax. He had planted himself near Bofur, who appeared to be limping but still gamely fought on, Bifur at his side. Bilbo couldn't see either Oin or Bombur, and hoped they were all right.

"Balin, we go to the Ravenhill! Bolg is bringing reinforcements from the north! Shift the line and prepare to meet them!" Fili called. He sent a nearby orc's head flying mid-sentence and didn't even slow down.

Balin didn't spare the breath to answer again, but he nodded grimly and began roaring orders to the dwarves. They formed up around him, and those who still had their shields moved to the front, pushing back against the orcs and angling their march toward Ravenhill.

Bilbo yelled in shock as greasy hands grabbed his foot and stabbed out of reflex. The orc who had tried to pull him from the saddle screeched in pain, and Kili thrust his sword through its neck.

"Good reflexes!" Kili said.

Bilbo led out a hysterical little laugh, thoroughly overwhelmed. At least he had found them before being thrown into battle - if he had been by himself, he would have been dead inside minutes, ring or no.

They broke through to the other side, and Fili leaned down over the top of his war ram, riding hard again. Kili kicked his mount on in Fili's wake, and Bilbo ducked his head under his arm to watch the rest of the Company fall away behind them.

"Don't worry about them," Kili said, nudging Bilbo to face front again. "We've all been through worse, right?"

Bilbo made a face, vividly reminded of when he had said the same thing to Fili. He was no longer certain of the truth of those words. War was something altogether different from any of the hardships they had faced before. It was a looming, ugly thing, one that dealt out death at random and had no consciousness of who did or did not deserve it. 

As the ruins on Ravenhill loomed closer, the fear Bilbo had tried to keep at bay wrapped its icy fingers around his heart. Tauriel had said they did not have much time. The second army could have already arrived, waiting for them. Or worse - what if they crested the top of the hill to find that all was silent, and Thorin already lay slain on the battlefield? Bilbo swallowed around a thick lump in his throat. It would be too cruel if their meeting before the gate was the last time they saw each other in life. Bilbo had so much he needed to say.

A flash of bright red and green pulled him out of his thoughts, and he looked up as they began to ascend the hill. Tauriel leapt lightly across the rocks, her feet barely seeming to touch the ground, never missing a step. At some point she seemed to have lost her bow, or else had run out of arrows - now the light of the sun flashed on two long knives as she jumped down off a crumbling wall into a knot of orcs below her.

"I believe your elf is almost as reckless as you are," Bilbo said, watching her twirl like a deadly, graceful dancer, black orc blood spraying in her wake.

"She's wonderful, isn't she?" Kili said fondly, and then kicked the ram forward with a yell. It jumped across the gap between two large, fallen pieces of wall, landing with surety that Bilbo would not have expected out of the shaggy animal. Fili took the more logical route, up the path worn into the side of the hill, and the three of them converged.

"How did you get here so fast?" Fili asked, his left-hand sword slashing through the belly of an orc who was trying to climb his saddle.

"I did not have to fight my way through the battlefield," Tauriel said. She exchanged a flurry of blows with an orc bearing a short sword before she spun around, fetched up under his guard, and buried both blades in his chest. She wrenched them free and continued her sentence as if nothing at all had happened. "It is much easier to go above instead of through."

"Maybe for you," Kili said, and Bilbo could hear the teasing grin in his voice, "not all of us have squirrel blood in our families."

Tauriel's lips twitched like she wanted to smile, but she instead concentrated on her opponents. The path up the side of Ravenhill was thick with them - if the reinforcements had already arrived, they would be too late with their warning.

As they broke through to the top of the hill, though, their enemies lying slain behind them, all was quiet. Dain stood from where he had been resting on the ruin of a low wall, heaving himself up by the haft of his warhammer.

Bilbo flung himself out of the saddle before Kili had properly stopped, Sting clutched in his hand. "Where's Thorin?"

"Went to scout ahead with Dwalin," Dain said. "I don't like it - too quiet up here."

"It's a trap," Bilbo said, near frantic. If Thorin had gone ahead, he could have run right into it. "There's another army coming from the north."

"They mean to catch us between their forces," Fili said. "Bolg son of Azog leads them down from Gundabad - they should be upon us-"

An unearthly shriek interrupted him, along with the sound of beating wings. A great swarm of bats burst over the Ravenhill like a thundercloud, and Bilbo ducked as they passed over his head, filthy claws grasping.

"They're here," Tauriel said, settling into a low crouch with her knives at the ready. The hideous, sneering face of a goblin popped over the ruins of a nearby parapet, and then another and another - a host was coming at them. 

Dain growled something low and violent in Khuzdul. "I should've known," he said. "Come on, lads! We can't let this lot get down below."

He swung his warhammer in a wide arc, clearing away three goblins in one heavy blow. Fili ran to join him, setting himself upon the other end of the line. His golden hair was splattered with black blood, his blades covered in it. Kili threw himself into battle beside his kin, swinging his sword in heavy, two-handed blows, a cry of fury on his lips. Tauriel darted in and out of the dwarves' steady line, her knives seeking throats and armpits, places where the enemy was vulnerable between their crude armor.

Bilbo bent down and grabbed a fist-sized rock, hurling it with all his might at an orc that clambered over the stones. It fell with a surprised cry, and he grabbed another, tossing it in his hand to be sure of its weight before throwing it as well, once again striking with deadly accuracy. Bilbo grinned, but the joy he might normally feel at finally being able to play to his strengths was muted - Thorin was still nowhere to be seen.

There was a guttural roar from the other side of the low wall, and suddenly a force of orcs much larger than the goblins surged forward, pushing the defenders back. The last to clamber over was a twisted creature, its face laid open with scars and held together with crude metal plates. In one hand he held a wicked spiked war mace, which he pointed at the dwarves as he growled something to his forces.

"Away with you, filth!" Dain growled back. He smashed the head of his warhammer into the breastplate of an orc charging him, laying it out flat on its back and then bringing his hammer down on its skull. Fili, Kili, and Tauriel fell back to flank him, a small knot of four defenders facing down what could only be Bolg and his reinforcements.

A fierce war cry rang out across the Ravenhill, and Bilbo jerked around like he was pulled on a string. He knew that bellow. 

Across the tumbled stone of half-missing stairs, atop the main tower, was Thorin. His sword was in constant motion, a blur of steel. He faced not one orc, but many, fending them off with a rain of swift blows. At the back of them, bellowing orders in his own filthy tongue, was Azog, a cruel glitter in his eyes. 

Dwalin was there too, roaring in fury as his axes cleaved through orcs, but there were too many of them, and they were between him and his king. Bilbo watched as Thorin struck down one opponent only to have two more rise in their place, slowly forced backward atop the tower toward its edge. The heel of his boot slipped off the edge. In the split second he glanced down to be sure of his footing, Azog shouldered through the line and swung a massive, spiked mace. Thorin ducked to avoid the blow, but the edge of the mace caught him above his brow. The force of it pitched him back - for an aching, desperate moment he seemed to hang in midair, and then he fell.

Bilbo gave a wordless shout and darted for the edge of the structure where they stood. He could see Thorin's form on the ice, dark and still. As Bilbo watched, though, he moved, pulling himself to his feet, though he favored one leg and his left arm dangled uselessly, like it was broken.

Dwalin broke off his fight and disappeared into the shadow of the ruined tower, making for the ground. Azog, leaning over the edge, glared at the dwarf below him on the ice. He pointed his bladed arm at Thorin and barked something to his orcs - they moved immediately, some going after Dwalin and others clambering down the sides of the tower like a swarm of grotesque insects.

"Thorin," Bilbo breathed, and his feet moved without consulting the body they were attached to.

"Bilbo, no!" Fili shouted from behind him, but he would not stop. He ran over the ruined stairs, heart pounding, Sting clutched tightly in his hand. The sound of his own panting breath was loud in his ears, but all the rest of the battle noise seemed to fall away. Only one thought repeated in his mind - _Thorin, Thorin, Thorin,_ thrumming like the beat of a war drum.

His foot slipped and he flung out his free hand, scraping it raw on the stone as he caught himself, the jolt of the impact traveling up his arm. Someone picked him up by the back of his coat and set him on his feet - he looked up to find Fili glaring at him furiously.

"You call us reckless!" he shouted. "How much difference do you think you will be able to make down there?"

"I don't care!" Bilbo shouted back. "Thorin is in trouble, and I'm going to help him!"

Fili's jaw clenched, but he let out a long sigh. "Mahal save us," he muttered. "Just stay behind me, and try not to get killed. Uncle is already going to be furious with us for bringing you out here - if something happened to you, he would never forgive us."

Dwalin burst out from the dark alcove at the base of the tower. "Lads!" he said, and swung his ax, felling an orc that had tried to follow him. "Good to see you well!"

"You too," Fili said. "I don't know if you'd noticed, but Azog seems to have reinforcements."

"Aye, but so do we," Dawlin said. He was bleeding from a gash on his cheekbone, his lip was split, and his knuckles were bloodied, but he still grinned. "Now, where's your uncle gotten off to?"

"Down there," Bilbo said, and the three of them began their slow, careful descent of the other side of Ravenhill. Bilbo couldn't spare much of his attention to look, but he could see Thorin readying himself below. The orcs who clambered down to the ice were almost upon him. His left arm no longer dangled, but he held it close to his body - it would hamper his movements for certain.

Bilbo's toes were numb, and exhaustion sapped at his strength. He had run for so long in Dale, and then the harrowing charge through the battle lines followed by the fight beside Dain had done nothing to give him his strength back. If he weren't so worried for Thorin, he might have considered that Fili was right, and he was not only next to useless in a war but in no shape to do any good besides.

But he _was_ worried for Thorin, and even if he was bleeding to death he would still use the last of his strength to do whatever he could to help.

It was the last thought that passed through his mind before Fili and Dwalin's boots hit the ice and they charged to their king. Bilbo, too focused on the scene below him to watch his feet, slipped on a loose rock and went down with a yelp. He grabbed for a hand-hold, but his fingers were too numb and tired to get a firm grip. He slid, moving at an alarming rate down the side of the hill and in altogether the wrong direction to be anywhere near Fili and Dwalin when he landed. The hair at the back of his neck stood on end, even as he scrambled to slow his descent. If he fetched up too close to the orcs, as tired and battered as he was, he would be an easy kill.

Bilbo scrabbled for the pocket of his coat as he tumbled, fetched out the ring, and managed to shove it onto his finger before his head struck a rocky outcropping and he knew no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continued thanks to my two wonderful betas, and to all of the people who are reading and commenting and enjoying :)


	4. Chapter 4

Thorin's blood sang through his veins, a glorious battle-joy that made him feel more alive than he'd been since the rush of expelling Smaug from the mountain. There was a brutal simplicity to it - strike, retreat, steer the ram with his knees, block with his shield. After the confusion and the still darkness inside the mountain of the past few days, even this was almost welcome.

Dain helped distract his mind from thoughts of Bilbo somewhere in Dale. He was the source of a constant stream of insults and jokes made at the expense of their enemies, sometimes roaring with laughter as he swung his warhammer from astride the ram. The three of them fought their way up the side of Ravenhill. Their mounts were thankfully sturdy and well-trained, neither balking at being surrounded nor rebelling at the frequent changes in direction.

When they finally gained the top of the path and crested the hill, it did not take long to clear the enemy from its tops. Like the ground forces, the orcs on Ravenhill had no discipline, and were not intelligent enough to use their numbers in concert to overwhelm the three warriors.

Thorin wrenched his sword free from the last orc, taking a moment to lean on its pommel, catching his breath. His gaze traveled over the battlefield to the city once more. Fili and Kili could no longer be seen - they must have entered the gates. Thorin tried to force his attention back to Dwalin and Dain, but he found himself drawn to the edge of the low wall around Ravenhill, watching the lines of battle shift, gaining and giving ground.

"Thorin," Dwalin said. "The lads will be fine, and so will Bilbo. It'll take more than an army of brain-dead orcs to find our burglar when he doesn't want to be found."

Far from settling his mind, that only served to set Thorin further on edge. It was true - if Bilbo did not want to be found, he would not be, and he didn't know Fili and Kili were looking for him. Would they find him at all, or had he sent them into danger on a futile task?

"Aye, Thorin - I meant to ask," Dain said, "Who is this Bilbo person you send the lads to find? Not that I'm questioning your judgment, but it would have been nice to have two more strong fighters here with us."

When Thorin turned, he found his cousin was looking out across the ruins of Ravenhill, a wrinkle in his brow. "He is-" Thorin started, and then paused. How was he to describe what Bilbo was to him? To simply call him the company's burglar fell too far short of his worth. Yet Thorin hesitated to ascribe anything deeper to their relationship - they had not talked about it, and he did not want to presume. Thorin could still clearly remember the look of surprise on Bilbo's face when the ransom was offered - he had a sneaking suspicion that Bilbo _didn't_ know how highly Thorin regarded him. Which only meant that Thorin had to emerge from this day victorious, because he would not allow such things to remain unsaid.

Finally, after he realized the pause had gone on too long, he said, "He is my friend. A true companion through many dangers. The elves took him prisoner before the battle, and meant to ransom him."

Dwalin let out a very suspicious-sounding cough, and when Thorin glanced at him, his oldest friend only rolled his eyes and shook his head. Dain's moustache bristled like he was hiding a smile in its depths. "A friend, eh?" he asked.

"Yes," Thorin said tightly, glaring at Dwalin and his cousin in equal measure. He did not want to discuss this now - aside from the timing, he had not yet broached the subject with Bilbo, and it felt wrong to speak of it behind his back.

"Oh, aye, I suppose you would've offered half the mountain's treasure for _my_ safety, would you?" Dwalin asked, his bushy eyebrows raised.

"Half!" Dain said, and chuckled, still grinning into his beard. "This Bilbo must be a _very_ good friend."

"Enough!" Thorin barked, hand tightening on the hilt of his sword. "There is a war going on, in case you fools have missed it."

"I can fight and tease you about the burglar at the same time," Dwalin said. "But you are right. Where is Azog?"

"Lurking somewhere in the ruins, no doubt," Thorin said, glaring at the empty, silent space around them. "But why retreat? There are only three of us."

Dain scratched at his beard, contemplating. "Maybe the coward will send his goblins after you rather than come himself," he said.

Thorin didn't think so. Azog seemed bent on wiping out the line of Durin personally. He had seen the gleam of hatred in the pale orc's eye after the goblin tunnels, and he doubted it had abated. It seemed far more likely that he was lying in wait, and would try to drive them closer.

As if summoned by his thoughts, unearthly shrieking and hooting erupted from just out of sight over the edge of the ridge. "Goblins," Thorin said, lip curling.

"No more than a hundred," Dwalin said.

"I can take 'em," Dain said, hefting his hammer. "You two go ahead, see if you can flush out that twisted piece of filth from whatever hole he's crawled into."

Thorin knew he should argue, but the chance to find Azog and end him once and for all was too tempting for even him to withstand. He gripped Dain's shoulder hard. "When this is over, we will drink to our ancestors in the halls of Erebor."

Dain snorted. "When this is over, you're going to tell me all about your burglar," he said, and shoved Thorin toward the stair leading further into the ruin. "Now go!"

Thorin did not tell his cousin to be careful, or to live through the day. Such things were useless to say to a warrior on the edge of battle. He firmed his grip on his sword and hefted his shield, heading deeper into Ravenhill with Dwalin at his back.

Once, these rookeries were teeming with ravens. Thorin remembered spending hours here as a youth, learning their language and listening raptly as they spoke, in their simple way, of the places they had been. Thorin had taken care to bring them gold scrap left over from his inexperienced attempts at metalwork, in exchange for quiet hours spent with only the birds as his company.

Now it was a sagging ruin, the stone ceilings collapsed into rubble on the floor, bricks worn round by the weather. Its walls were much shorter than he recalled, and not only because he had grown taller. The shadows of the walls were ragged-edged as they played across the grimy stone floors, as if some enormous hand had scooped out palmfuls of the masonry and strewn them across the hilltop.

"Too quiet," Dwalin grunted, and Thorin glanced over his shoulder to find his friend's brow furrowed, his grip on his axes too tight. "I don't like this, Thorin. Feels like a trap."

Thorin stopped, listening hard for any sign of their enemy. He heard nothing but the scream of the wind through gaps in the stone, the distant sound of Dain's battle cries, and the heavy sound of their own breathing.

"Almost certainly a trap," Thorin said, and inexplicably saying it out loud made some of the tension uncoil from his shoulders.

"As long as we both know," Dwalin said. They started forward again, much slower this time, keeping their movements as quiet as they were able. If they could approach quietly enough, perhaps they could surprise the orcs no doubt lying in wait to ambush them.

It was eerily quiet, the sounds of the larger battle too distant and even Dain's voice fading until it was a bare shout on the wind. They passed under a long patch of broken ceiling, and the small hairs on the back of Thorin's neck prickled at the feeling of open sky yawning above him. It made him feel exposed and on edge. The pale orc was here, somewhere, and it was only that thought that kept him from pulling back to rejoin Dain.

They passed into the darkness at the bottom of a ruined turret, the ceiling and walls around them intact to preserve the well of deep shadows within. A faint noise pierced the muted whistle of the wind, and Thorin threw his hand out, halting Dwalin with a signal. They waited, motionless, and then heard it again - the feral hoot of an orc.

 _Enemy,_ Thorin signaled. Dwalin grunted a quiet assent, his knuckledusters creaking as he tightened his grip on his axes. The walls were too close here, and there was no clear line of sight to see what was coming. A poor place to make a stand, and an excellent spot for an ambush.

 _Forward,_ he signed. They abandoned silence for swiftness, now, breaking into a quick jog up the left fork of the stone corridor. There was light up ahead, not the pale yellow of the sun but a smudged gold of torches. It flickered across the wall from a doorway ahead to their right. Thorin slowed and threw his back against the wall just before the opening, breathing hard. Dwalin halted opposite him, far enough down that he wouldn't be seen until their enemy entered the corridor.

The scrape of a sword against stone was the only warning they received before the first orc appeared from the door, but they were ready. Thorin thrust his sword into its side, the blade sinking clean through. He ducked down to yank the blade free, giving Dwalin clearance to move on the next orc that came through the door, swinging his ax in a beheading stroke. Thorin raised his shield arm and pushed forward, driving the next orc back with the shield planted firmly in its face. He was through the door first, striking out at the first orc he saw. Dwalin burst into the small chamber behind him with a bellow. 

This had once been the place where messages where dictated and received from the ravens - it had high open windows that overlooked the land below, and a small stair in the center of the room leading in a spiral around the small tower's center to the roof. Half a dozen orcs stood between them and that stair, which Thorin was convinced would lead them to their quarry.

The orcs had plainly been planning on ambushing them instead of the other way around, and they appeared to hesitate in some confusion at the sight of two seasoned dwarf warriors, already blood-soaked and battle-fevered.

They did not give the enemy time to regroup. From his right, Dwalin roared out a ringing war cry. They attacked as one. Dwalin's axes cleaved their enemies' skulls while Thorin's sword stabbed unerringly at the vulnerable gaps in their crude armor. Together, they drove the orcs back toward the stair.

The muscles in Thorin's arms began to throb dully with use, and his breath came harder, more labored. He shoved Dwalin aside with a heavy knock to his shoulder and raised his shield to block a blow meant for the other dwarf's head. He felt the strike shiver down his bones, and the shield creaked warningly. He strained against the orc's strength, teeth gritted, and heaved with his shield arm. Dwalin punched out with the haft of one of his axes, driving it into the orc's gut and sending it staggering down with a wheeze. Thorin cut its throat.

Thorin knew that the skirmish had been brutally swift, fighting back-to-back and cutting the enemy down. When the last orc fell beneath Dwalin's axes, they stood apart for a moment, panting and staring at each other.

"They'll be waiting for us," Dwalin said finally, looking up the spiral stair to the gap in the ceiling. It was only one story, but the shape of the stair would tax their worn strength. A square of pale blue sky shone through it, unmarred by the presence of orcs, but Thorin was not fool enough to think that meant anything. Azog was there. He could feel it in his bones.

"Aye," Thorin said. "I'll lead with the shield."

"One more charge, eh?" Dwalin asked. He grasped Thorin's forearm and pulled him in, leaning their foreheads together for a moment while they caught their breath and prepared for what would be the last fight. They would either carry the day, or...

"Dwalin," Thorin said, squeezing his arm. "If I should fall-"

"Not while I still draw breath," Dwalin growled.

Thorin shook his head, a wry smile quirking his lips. "Let me finish, damn you. If I should fall, find Fili. Make sure there is a Durin left to take the throne."

"I told you," Dwalin said, brows drawn down tight and stubborn. "It won't happen while I'm still alive."

"Swear it," Thorin insisted, fingers digging into Dwalin's sleeve.

Dwalin was silent for a moment. In the quiet, they heard the sound of shifting boots on the stone overhead - it was impossible to determine the number from here, but their enemy lay in wait. Finally, Dwalin huffed and shoved Thorin away, glaring at him. "I swear it," he said. "I'm just not going to let it happen."

"Fair," Thorin said, and hefted his shield. "Once more, my friend."

Dwalin nodded, readying his axes. Thorin set his jaw, raised his shield, and charged up the steps to meet the unseen enemy.

He saw a flash of pale flesh and a glint of metal in the sunlight and braced for impact. The first blow hit his shield like a battering ram. It was only Dwalin's bulk behind him that propelled him forward, else he would have tumbled down the stair into the room below. The shock of the blow broke the wooden shield in twain. 

There, staring him in the face with his lip curled in a sneer, was the pale orc.

Azog backed away, putting distance between them. The weapon that had dealt the blow was a cruel-looking heavy mace, and through the stump of his left arm the creature had shoved a curved blade. Thorin shook the broken pieces of his shield from his numb arm. It was an eerie echo of another battle, facing this same enemy, but this time there was no convenient oak branch.

At his back, Dwalin grunted and threw his shoulder into an orc standing too near the edge of the tower. It tumbled over with an eerie scream. Azog roared something in his ugly language. The other orcs on the roof crowded in front of him, pressing Thorin and Dwalin back toward the edge of the tower.

Thorin's blood pounded in his ears, and the exhaustion from before seemed to lift from him, borne away on wings of fury. He looked Azog in the eye and bared his teeth in a feral rictus of a grin. His shield arm still tingled from the force of that mace, but the orcs on this rooftop were no more skilled than those he'd fought below.

He cut and parried as if his arm was divorced from his body, instinct remembering the motions while his mind was fixed on one point. The pale orc bellowed directions in the Black Speech, hanging back. A dull pulse of rage uncoiled in Thorin's breast, throbbing with the beat of his heart. This _coward_ would not escape him this time. He would be the death of this creature once and for all, come what may.

A quiet, small whisper in the back of his mind admonished that thought - he would live to see the next dawn, or he would never see Bilbo again.

Thorin set his jaw and struck in a wide arc, driving the orcs back so he could gain more ground atop the tower. The sounds of Dwalin fighting came from farther away - they'd been separated in the melee, but Thorin could not spare his attention to look. The sight of Azog mere paces away, sharp teeth bared in a mocking grin, fueled him. He swung his sword again and again, flexing some of the numbness out of his left hand until he could wrap it around the hilt as well, lending more power to his blows.

It seemed futile. Thorin was certain he had cut down the number of orcs on the roof, and yet there were more enemies. He glanced to the stair to the tower below in time to catch sight of more climbing out into the sun. There had been more orcs in the tower - the room below wasn't a trap. It was the bait.

Thorin seethed, furious at his own misjudgement. They were trapped on this roof, and the orcs were toying with them. They struck and darted back, feeling out Thorin's defenses and forcing him to waste energy defending against them. Thorin's feet moved surely over the tumbled stone atop the tower, but his instincts told him he was running out of ground. The orcs were driving him to the edge of the tower, putting themselves between him and Dwalin.

A roar of frustration burst from him and he cut down the closest orc, planting his boot in its chest to wrench his sword free. The motion cost him precious seconds, and he was forced to fall back as more moved forward to take the dead orc's place.

"Thorin!" Dwalin shouted, and Thorin glanced over at him. He was well cut off, a line of enemies between the two of them. "Thorin, I'll drag you back from the Halls and kill you myself!"

Thorin would have laughed, had he the breath. He retreated another step and wavered, the heel of his boot finding only empty air.

Azog barked a word. The orcs fell back from Thorin, and Azog advanced, growling in the Black Speech. Thorin set his feet back on solid stone and raised his sword in both hands. The fight had been long and grueling, but he had strength yet for this.

He didn't expect the blow to come from the mace, instead of the cruel sword embedded in Azog's arm. Azog swung it back and up in a long, circular motion. Thorin ducked to the side, leaning away, but his reflexes were slower than he thought, and one edge struck him a glancing blow above his brow.

No matter how glancing, the force of it was enough to upset his footing. Thorin staggered, then wavered on the tower's edge, grasping at air with his free hand, all his muscles seized and quivering in an attempt to gain his equilibrium. 

It was not enough. Thorin felt his balance give way and fought to turn his body, tucking his head in and moving his sword away from his vitals. His fall was not broken early by the hill or the side of the tower. A scant handful of sickening seconds passed in free-fall, and then his body hit the ground atop his shield arm.

Something cracked. Pain lanced through him. Thorin's breath came in whistling gasps after being driven from his lungs. He had landed on his shoulder - the crack he had felt was a break, or perhaps a dislocation if he was lucky. He lived yet.

At first, he could not gather the strength to rise. The distance he had fallen, the force at which the air was knocked from his lungs, the dozen small pains from wounds he only now remembered taking wore on his endurance. Still, Thorin forced himself to sit up. 

His left side screamed with each movement - aside from the shoulder, he must have injured his ribs. He did not care to prod at them and discover if they were broken or merely bruised. He dug his sword point into the ice and used it to pull himself to his feet. His thigh twinged - he looked down to find a slow-bleeding gash. There was no time to bind it now. He could only hope that it would remain slow-bleeding.

_And that your ribs are not broken and pressing on your lung, and that your shoulder can be set and repaired, and that the blow you took to the head is not more serious than it feels._

Thorin pushed the injuries to the back of his mind. Orcs had followed him down the tower, climbing over the broken edges of fallen tower stones. The way they moved reminded him horribly of the spiders of Mirkwood - filth born from the same ilk.

He shifted his stance, bracing himself, wrenching his sword's point from the ice. He took only a moment to look down and be sure of his footing - the ice was thick here, and it would take more than the force of their steps to crack it. His reserves were flagging, yes, but he would not rest until Azog was dead.

As the orcs hit the ice and charged to intercept him, Thorin forced his tired muscles to obey his commands and raised his sword. The lost use of his left arm was a detriment, but what concerned him more was the pain when he breathed, and the dull ache in his thigh when he moved.

He met the first orc with a grunt, catching its sword on his own. The blades shrieked as the skidded together and ended up locked at the hilt. The orc's fetid breath washed over Thorin's face, its teeth bared. Thorin shoved it away and hacked, a sloppy blow that nevertheless split the orc's chest open and felled it.

Thankfully, the assault was not endless as it had been atop the tower. The orcs had to descend the steep hill and choose their steps across the ice carefully. It meant that Thorin had more pause between them - a blessing and a curse, since it gave him time to catch his breath but also gave his wounds time to start throbbing again. Still, in his tired state, Thorin was grateful for small favors.

He was even more grateful to hear a familiar voice shout, "Du Bekhar!" Thorin yanked his sword free from his latest foe and turned to look, a smile spreading across his face. There was Dwalin, and Thorin's grin broadened to find Fili just behind him, his golden hair flying about his face. Fili's swords were black with the blood of orcs, but he was not bloodied as Dwalin and Thorin were, still fresh-faced and on his first wind.

"Good to see you saved me some of the fun," Fili said as he drew even with Thorin. He turned to face the oncoming enemy, but Thorin caught him looking out of the corner of his eye, gaze tracking over Thorin's injuries.

"I'm fine," Thorin said shortly. "Where is your brother? And Bilbo?"

"Kili is with Dain atop the hill, tangling with Bolg and his reinforcements, I expect," Fili said. "Azog had a second army in reserve that pressed south from Gundabad. Bilbo is-" Fili stopped, frowning, looking over the foot of the hill. "Bilbo was right behind us."

"Creeping around invisible-like, if he's got any sense," Dwalin grunted. He stood at Thorin's other side, readying for another wave. Those orcs who had chosen to go down the stair to the base of the tower were now pouring onto the ice in force.

"He's here?! On the battlefield? I told you to make sure he was safe!" Thorin would have shaken his nephew if his arm didn't hurt so badly and if he didn't need to pay attention to their enemy.

"Wouldn't stay," Fili said shortly, even as he stepped forward to intercept the orcs' charge. "Gave me some choice words about 'cowering like a child' while we were in danger. He's stubborn as a dwarf, sometimes."

Despite the spike of real fear that had lanced through him upon discovering that Bilbo was not only on the battlefield, but currently missing from sight, a surge of affection swept through Thorin. He could picture Bilbo wound up into one of his characteristic indignant furies, giving his nephew a thorough dressing-down. "That he is," Thorin said fondly.

"He saw you fall from the tower and came charging down here like he would take on Azog's forces single-handedly," Fili said. He deflected a sword strike on his crossed blades and threw his weight behind it, forcing the orc's own blade back on him. A hard jerk of both swords, and the orc's head toppled into the dirt. "It was a good thing I followed him."

 _The energy of youth,_ Thorin thought. "Save your breath," he said. "This is far from over." The forces Azog had held in reserve on Ravenhill had been thinned by Thorin and Dwalin's work atop the tower, but they still threatened to overwhelm if the three dwarves could not hold their ground.

Dwalin came to his left side without prompting, while Fili angled himself between Thorin and the larger body of reinforcements. Thorin saw what they were doing, but he couldn't afford to let it needle his pride. He cradled his left arm against his ribs, trying not to move like he was obviously favoring it. He set his sword to work once more, striking at those enemies who managed to get past his defenders.

Azog glared murder at them from atop the tower. Thorin spun around to dispatch an orc who thought it could creep up and flank them. His rage at the pale orc grew with every stroke. When would the coward come down and fight? When Thorin was staggering with exhaustion, when his wounds had finally taken their toll on him?

He fell back momentarily behind Dwalin and Fili, leaning on his sword and panting for breath. It seemed that he was right - Azog was waiting for him to falter. The pale orc bared all his sharp teeth in a hideous mockery of a grin and jumped from the top of the tower. He had traded his mace for a crude flail, little more than a chunk of tower stone wrapped in chain. It hit the ice with a loud crack, followed by the ominous sound of several smaller cracks fissuring through the thick frozen sheet.

Fili looked down at his feet. In the split second it took him to look back up, an orc slid inside his defenses. Fili tried to deflect the blow and managed it only partially - instead of sinking through his ribs to pierce his lung, the sword thrust punched through the meat of his right armpit and out the other side. Fili yelled, furious, and wrenched away from the orc, its blade still stuck in his arm.

"Fili!" Dwalin yelled, shoving his way to the prince's side. His axes flashed and the orc fell beneath them, its throat cut. Fili's face was twisted in pain, but he grabbed the blade and pulled it free, hurling it away from him across the ice.

"I can still fight," he said. "I won't leave."

Thorin dispatched two enemies in rapid succession, but as he readied to meet more, he found that Azog was all that remained. The pale orc advanced slowly, mouth still twisted in that cruel grin. His eyes flicked from Thorin to Fili, as if he was uncertain which would make an easier target.

Thorin could remove that choice for him. "Dwalin, get him out of here," he said.

"You're in no shape-" Dwalin protested.

"Get him out of here!" Thorin shouted, the force of the command sending a jolt of pain through his ribs. "Durin's line will not end today!"

Dwalin did not attempt to argue again, cursing blackly as he picked Fili up and threw him over his shoulders.

"Uncle!" Fili shouted, thumping Dwalin on the back with his good hand and kicking for Dwalin's ribs. He was bleeding freely from the wound, a dark trail of red that threatened to soak the back of Dwalin's leathers. When he came to his senses, he would realize that Thorin sent him away for his own good, to keep him from bleeding to death on the battlefield. "Uncle Thorin!"

Azog made to follow them, but Thorin moved swiftly, putting himself between the pale orc and his nephew's forced retreat. Azog glared furiously at him, his lip curling, and spat something in the Black Speech. Thorin did not bother to reply. At last it was down to the two of them - no goblins, no other orcs, no distractions. He would end this abomination here and now.

Thorin took silent stock of his injuries as they set to circling each other. The ribs on his left side pulled every time he breathed, but he could still draw breath and the pain was throbbing, not sharp and stabbing. His left arm was useless, but the pain in his thigh had diminished enough that he no longer needed to favor it. Still, the pale orc had height, strength, and reach on him - and wasn't wounded.

Azog swung the stone flail over his head, paying out more chain each time it made the circuit until Thorin had to duck and let it whistle over his head. Thorin stepped under the chain and forced his tired legs to charge, his breath coming in a pained grunt as he fetched up under the flail and slashed for Azog's sword arm. If he severed that weapon, the orc would be hampered by the flail and would not be able to defend himself.

His enemy was fast, though, faster than he should have been for his size. Azog parried his strike and twisted, trying to hook Thorin's sword in one of the blade's spikes. Thorin broke away and countered, stabbing for the muscle of the pale orc's bicep. A sense like the hairs prickling on the back of his neck shuddered through him and he ducked as Azog gave a mighty yank to the flail's chain, arresting its progress and changing its direction abruptly. Thorin ducked again, grunting when his ribs protested. Azog lunged for him with his sword arm.

A snarl of fury twisted Azog's face when Thorin brought his sword up and blocked the blow - though he was barely in time, and he had to disengage and back away quickly before the orc could use his superior strength to bear Thorin down to the ice below. The pale orc threw the chain of the flail back and yanked, lifting the stone into the air and sending it an arc over his head. Thorin leapt aside to avoid the hurtling boulder.

The stone's impact sent more cracks shivering through the ice, and for a moment they both paused opposite each other, waiting to see if it would give way. The sound went on, a chorus of snapping, and Thorin retreated step by step, inching toward the safe stone of the tower. Azog took one step to follow him, dragging the stone flail behind him. It seemed that was the last of the abuse the ice sheet would tolerate - with a resounding crack, a fissure opened under Azog's feet to the icy waters below.

Azog dropped the stone flail, letting it sink into the darkness of the water, and scrambled for stable footing. A floe of ice separated from the main sheet, tipping under Azog's weight. Azog stabbed his sword arm into the ice, sending chips of it flying, and with a roar he threw his weight to the other side of the floe. It tilted again and leveled out, hitting the water with a splash. Azog pulled his blade free and gained his feet, moving almost gingerly.

Thorin clenched his jaw and silently cursed the creature's filthy luck. He took another step back, then another, and finally felt his boot scrape against snow-covered stone rather than ice. Azog jumped from the ice floe, back on thicker ice once more. Thorin raised his sword and braced himself.

Before the orc could charge, a familiar, ear-splitting screech split the air. In the sky to the northwest, large, dark shapes descended from the clouds, wings outstretched. 

_The eagles,_ Thorin thought, and hope swelled within him once more.

Azog ducked as they passed overhead, their talons reaching. The pale orc glared hatred at the eagles as they disappeared over the edge of the frozen waterfall to descend on the battle below, then turned that burning gaze to Thorin instead. With a bellow, the orc raised his blade arm and charged.

They met with a clash, but Thorin could not afford to lock blades with Azog for long. He used his smaller size to duck under the orc's reach, climbing a small pile of tumbled stone and slashing at the orc from behind. Once again, Azog was faster than he might have hoped. He turned to meet the blow, forcing Thorin back over uneven stone. Thorin couldn't risk a glance behind him, not and take his eyes from the orc's weapon, but neither could he stand his ground. He parried Azog's blows and retreated, the clash of their blades ringing through the stillness of the air.

Thorin's back hit something hard. There was nowhere left to retreat to, and Azog bore down on him, raising his blade high and chopping down. Thorin lifted his sword and stopped the strike, his own sword wedging between one of the hooks on Azog's once again. His arm shook with the effort of holding the strike at bay. Azog's face contorted with effort, and inch by inch that wicked blade crept closer. Thorin's ribs ached with every breath, his left shoulder felt like it was on fire, and his strength was failing.

The point of Azog's sword met his chest, biting through layers of cloth and leather like they were nothing. Thorin gritted his teeth against the pained, furious sound climbing up from his throat and pushed harder, trying in vain to break away from where the orc had him pinned against the stone. He gave an almighty wrench of his sword, heard something snap, and felt an agonizing line of fire draw across his skin.

Azog's sword laid him open from his collarbone to the end of his ribs on the opposite side, a deep jagged cut. Thorin's sword was broken in the middle, snapped from the force of the torque he had put on it. 

_Fitting,_ he thought, almost in a daze. _The blade I would have slain my kin with betrayed me in the end._

Azog bared his sharp teeth in a cruel, triumphant grin, and he raised his bladed arm over his head, intending to finish the dwarf rather than let the bleeding wound kill him slowly.

Thorin struck upward with all the strength that remained to him. Azog had not put distance between them again - perhaps he thought Thorin more exhausted than he was, or perhaps he thought the pain of the ugly wound across his chest would render him helpless. Thorin jammed his broken sword into the pale orc's throat, shoving and twisting. Azog staggered back, his eyes wide in shock, black blood spilling from his lips and down his neck. His features twisted in fury, and with a choked gurgle he fell to his knees, and then collapsed on his face.

Panting, his left arm pressed as much as he could over the bleeding wound in his chest, Thorin shuffled to the pale orc's still form. He set his boot under the creature's shoulder and heaved, rolling him onto his back. A pool of black blood smeared across the ice underneath him, Thorin's broken sword sticking out of his neck. Azog's eyes were blank and staring in death.

The battle-fever that had sustained Thorin drained away from him. He staggered away from the cooling corpse of his enemy across the expanse of ice, avoiding the weakened place where Azog had nearly gone under. His limbs were heavy and uncoordinated, his breath coming shallow and painful.

At the edge of the frozen waterfall, he stopped, looking down on the battlefield. The orcs and goblins milled around in confusion. The eagles wreaked havoc over the enemy, descending to rake their ranks, sometimes lifting several into the air and dropping them to the unforgiving earth below. The faint sound of a roar carried to him, its source the enormous, dark shape in the thickest knot of orcs remaining. Next to Beorn, the rest of their allies were small specks, but their lines were solid. Thorin could not see the Company from this distance.

His legs gave out on him suddenly and he collapsed on the ice, rolling over onto his back, hands pressed to the slick, bloodied front of his chest. He was dying, surely - only dying could feel this numb and cold.

The knowledge settled over him, its inevitability almost comforting. Fili was safe with Dwalin, and Kili with Dain. The Company, under Balin's command, would certainly survive.

_Bilbo._

Bilbo had not appeared in the midst of the battle, as Thorin half expected him to. Thorin found himself wishing for his presence, even though he should be glad Bilbo had remained hidden. Perhaps this was his penance, for not listening to Bilbo's desperate efforts to stop this war before it began.

"Thorin!"

Thorin hadn't realized his eyes were closed until he forced them to open again. "Bilbo," he said, his voice choked and strained. The hobbit was there, Sting falling from his hand to clatter on the ice as he went to his knees beside Thorin's prone body.

"Don't move, don't move," Bilbo said. His face was twisted in worry, brows drawn together. There was blood in his hair, matted like he had taken a blow there. He pushed Thorin's hands from where they pressed on the wound, flinching when Thorin grimaced at the movement of his left arm. "Lie still - ohh." The sound was small and dismayed, almost choked in the back of Bilbo's throat, when he drew the edges of Thorin's jerkin aside and saw the gaping wound across his chest.

"I'm glad you're here," Thorin said. It was an effort to force the words out, and his chest burned with every breath.

"Shh, shh," Bilbo said, pressing his hands over the wound like Thorin had, trying uselessly to keep pressure on it.

"There is much I must say to you before I go," Thorin said, ignoring Bilbo's admonishments.

"No," Bilbo said fiercely, pressing down harder on the wound. Thorin grunted at the pressure on his ribs. "You are not going anywhere, Thorin. You're going to live."

"I would - apologize for my behavior in the mountain," Thorin said, struggling for the breath he needed. He would not leave this unsaid. "I drove you to such - desperate measures. You only wanted what was best - forgive me. I was too blind to see." He pulled in another long, painful breath. "I am so sorry to have led you into such peril." Pain lanced through his chest, and his right hand groped for Bilbo's, barely a twitch of movement.

Bilbo grabbed it, fingers gripping Thorin's tightly, his hand small and warm even through Thorin's bloodied glove. "No I - I'm glad to have shared in your perils, Thorin, each and every one," Bilbo said, voice trembling but firm. "It's far more than any Baggins deserves." He kept his other hand pressed against the wound in Thorin's chest, but it was too large, and Bilbo had nothing more to stave the flow of blood. His shoulders hunched, and he ducked his head, curls falling messily into his eyes as he heaved a sigh that seemed drawn from the depths of him. "About - about the ransom-"

Thorin felt a smile break over his face, a warmth that threatened to fight off the creeping cold filling up his chest. "I would have given it," he said. "All of it and more. You are -" Thorin coughed, his ribs screaming at the contraction of his chest. "You are worth more to me than any treasure, any kingdom. I only wish - we had more time." He forced himself to suck in another shallow breath. "Farewell, Master Burglar. Go back to your books and your armchair. Plant your trees, and watch them grow." Another breath, a difficult one, pulling into his lungs in a long, slow stream. "If more people valued home above gold, this world would be a merrier place."

Bilbo's eyes were bright, his hands shaking where they rested pressed over Thorin's wound and in his hand, like the force of his grip could keep him from slipping away. "No - no, no, no, Thorin! Thorin, don't you dare!"

He should stay, because Bilbo sounded so desperate, so heartbroken. But his eyes were falling closed again, the breath felt as if it was winding out of his lungs like the slow hiss of a bellows. As he faded, he felt Bilbo clutch at his hand.

"Thorin, hold on," he said, his voice coming fainter by the second. "Thorin, the eagles - the eagles are here. Thorin-"

The pain faded with the rest of his senses. He was cold, but Bilbo was there. It was his voice and the steady press of his hands that set Thorin's heart at ease as the darkness finally claimed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DON'T PANIC: THE TAGS HAVE NOT CHANGED. I realize this is a bit of a cruel cliffhanger but it really is the optimal place to switch POV. Everything is fine! Breathe!


	5. Chapter 5

"Thorin - Thorin!" Bilbo pressed the back of his bloodied hand to his mouth, strangling the sobs that climbed up from his throat. Though the breaths came slow and labored, Thorin's chest still moved, and while Thorin was alive Bilbo could _not_ fall apart. "Thorin, _please._ "

There was a grunt and a tumble of falling of stone from behind him, and Bilbo stiffened. He reluctantly turned, keeping one hand pressed to the terrible wound in Thorin's chest, and groped for Sting, his shaking fingers closing tight around its hilt.

A very familiar curse met his ears - though Bilbo still did not know what it meant - and he relaxed as Dain came limping around the corner, leaning heavily on his warhammer. His right leg was bloodied and mangled below the knee, bound straight and stiff with strips of cloth and what looked like the haft of a spear in a crude splint. He was still in better shape than Thorin.

"Master Baggins," he puffed, hobbling across the ice. "Didn't rightly get a chance to introduce ourselves atop the tower there."

"Yes, certainly - please, I need your help. He's bleeding so badly, and he wouldn't stay awake-"

The urgency in Bilbo's voice made Dain redouble his efforts, armor clattering and warhammer thumping. He dropped the weapon and lowered himself with difficulty to sit on the ice. "Aye, it's not good," Dain said, not bothering to try and make it sound better for Bilbo's sake. "I'll need your coat, lad."

Bilbo glanced up at him with a start. "My coat?"

"We've got to keep pressure on that wound, or he'll bleed out," Dain said. "Come on, off with it."

Bilbo looked down at Thorin, his chest barely lifting with the wheezing, ragged breaths, and fumbled for his coat pockets. Somehow, miraculously, the Arkenstone had not fallen out of his pocket when he took his tumble down the side of the hill. He gave Dain a piercing glance and pulled the cloth-wrapped bundle of the Arkenstone from his pocket, followed by the ring, which he wrapped up together and wedged under his leg. He yanked the coat off, thrusting the thing at Dain. Hastily, he tucked his mithril shirt into his breeches and stuffed the bundle down its front. Dain was already pressing the tattered blue coat to that awful gash, and Bilbo's hands joined him.

"Keep pressure on, especially up top where it starts," Dain said. "Lots of blood there at the shoulder. I'll see what I can do about getting us a way down."

"A way down?" Bilbo asked, surprised to see Dain heave himself to his feet and go to the frozen edge that overlooked the battlefield.

"He needs a healer, or he'll die," Dain said, blunt and grave. "You can't carry him, and with this bedamned leg, I can't either."

Bilbo's heart tripped in his chest, and an awful ache of dread spread through him. "Where are Kili and Tauriel?" he asked, remembering that those two had remained with Dain. "And Dwalin and Fili - they were right in front of me before I took my tumble."

"Kili might lose an eye," Dain said. He leaned on his warhammer and waved his free arm over his head vigorously, eyes on the battlefield. "Got too close to Bolg, and the bastard hit him right across the face, ear to eyebrow. Knocked him cold. The elf took him to the tents. Dwalin passed me on his way down, and he had Fili - the lad had a wound to his shoulder, although you wouldn't be able to tell with the way he was yelling about going back for his uncle. They'll both live, in my estimation. Would've been here sooner, but this bloody leg needed splinting."

So it was only Thorin who he might lose today. He was sure that would matter at some point, but right now it was poor comfort. Bilbo resolutely pressed harder on his coat, trying to ignore how it already felt tacky with blood. His cheeks were damp, but he didn't care to try to stem the tears. If he tried to hold them back, it would only be harder to see what he was doing.

The rustle of wings brought his head up again. "Finally," Dain grumbled, as one of the huge eagles descended to the ice beside them, picking its way delicately to where Thorin lay. The eagle fixed Dain with a piercing look from one gold eye, talons digging grooves in the ice.

"Please, ehm - sir?" Bilbo said, and the eagle tilted its head the other direction, eye sharpening on him instead.

 

"Caoimhe," the eagle said, and the voice was deep and throaty, like a low trill instead of a screech.

"Caoimhe," Bilbo repeated, twisting his tongue around the unfamiliar name. "Please, we need to get to the healer's tents right away. He's dying."

The eagle lowered its head and regarded Thorin's still form. "I will have to carry him in my talons if he cannot hold on."

"Anything that gets him on the ground," Dain said. "That wound must get sewn up and bound, quick-like."

"Might I-" Bilbo started, then stopped, hesitant. The eagle was not a pony, to be ridden as he pleased, but Thorin shouldn't be without him. What if stitching and bandaging wasn't enough? What if Bilbo wasn't with him if - in case - "I can't leave him."

The feathers at the eagle's throat and breast ruffled, a movement Bilbo had seen on brooding hens as they prepared to cover their eggs. "You may ride down with us," she said. At least, Bilbo was almost certain Caoimhe was a she after _that_ gesture.

"Thank you," he breathed. "Oh - and Master Dain?"

"I'll find my own way down, lad, don't trouble yourself with me," Dain said. "Look after my fool cousin!"

"I will," Bilbo said. Caoimhe ducked down, lowering herself as far as she was able, and Dain boosted Bilbo onto her back. "He's not going anywhere."

Dain chuckled. "Fierce wee thing," he said. "I can see why Thorin likes you so much."

Before Bilbo could begin to sputter at that, Caoimhe spread her wings and lifted off with a short hop, hovering awkwardly for a moment to grasp Thorin gently in her talons before plunging down toward the battlefield and the ragged remains of the encampment.

Bilbo felt an overwhelming sense of deja vu, remembering his last eagle ride had also been spent worrying over Thorin, unconscious in the strong grip of sword-like talons. It was no less heart-stopping an experience the second time. Bilbo's stomach still swooped into his throat, the wind rushing past his ears loud enough to deafen him, the massive muscles of the eagle's back and neck flexed beneath him. He tried not to grip too hard at Caoimhe's feathers, but his head spun dizzily - whether from the height or the knock he'd taken, he wasn't sure.

"Hold on," Caoimhe warned, and then juked and dove, something chittering and black passing within inches of Bilbo's head. Caoimhe herself let out a screech in what was presumably her own language. One of the other eagles diverted direction and slammed talon-first into the bat that had tried to unseat Bilbo. When the creature fell lifeless to the earth, the second eagle turned on a wingtip, coming back around to soar above them like an honor guard. "The battle may be won, but the Evil One's forces will fight to the last."

Bilbo swallowed, fiercely reminding his stomach where it belonged - _it isn't as if you have anything to throw up, you still haven't eaten so much as a bite_ \- and didn't answer her, just held on.

They caused something of a sensation when they arrived at the encampment. The northeast edge of it was somewhat worse for wear, but it appeared that the dwarves who had come to support Dain's army worked quickly. They had all but taken over, with hastily-erected barriers around the small battalion of tents made from fallen orc spears lashed together. It created a bristling, spiked perimeter, one an enemy would be hard-pressed to overcome. 

Caoimhe settled down in the center, the only place that had even a prayer of containing her vast wingspan. Even then, the beating of her wings stirred the tops of the tents, and healers - elven and dwarven alike - came bustling out from them like a swarm of disturbed ants.

The scowls faded into alarm when Caoimhe uncurled her talons, revealing her precious burden. Shouts of, "The king!" and "He's wounded!" carried over the gathering.

Bilbo threw himself from Caoimhe's back and took two steps before remembering his manners. He spun on his heel and offered the eagle a deep bow. "Thank you - this is twice you and your kin have saved us."

Caoimhe regarded him, and Bilbo wasn't certain if he was imagining it, but he thought he saw a faint spark of amusement there. "Fret not, Shireling," she said. "I know what it is for a loved one to be injured in battle. Tend to your king - I go to report to mine."

Bilbo was quite at a loss of words, which he supposed was a good thing, because she spread her wings and took off as soon as she had finished speaking, blowing the tops of the tents around and provoking much indignant language from the healers.

They worked quickly - Thorin was being carefully lifted onto a stretcher when Bilbo hurried back over to him. He looked so pale and battered that Bilbo nearly lost his composure again, but he dashed the moisture from his eyes with a frustrated movement, hovering uselessly around the stretcher as two stout dwarves lifted it up. "Oh, be careful!" he said, knowing that they didn't need him to say it but unable to help himself nevertheless. "Where is Oin? Thorin would want to be in his care-"

"Master Oin is tending the princes," one of the dwarves said. She was stockily built, her black hair and beard alike bound up tightly to keep them out of her way, bearing the front of Thorin's stretcher like it was no challenge to lift. "We're taking him there, don't you worry yourself."

Bilbo didn't bother telling her that the sun would rise in the west and set in the east before a Baggins stopped worrying - she wouldn't understand, and she was busy. Instead, he slipped up to the side of the stretcher and rested one hand on Thorin's chest, comforted by the feeling of it moving up and down with his breaths. As long as that motion was still there, Thorin was still alive. He concentrated on that feeling and put a ruthless stranglehold on the panic that threatened to rise every time there was the barest hint of a pause. Losing his composure on the side of Ravenhill when there was no-one around to see him was one thing, but now he was smack in the middle of dozens of people milling around with much better things to do than to try and comfort him through a hysterical breakdown.

The tent the two stretcher-bearers took Thorin to was larger than many of the others, and its shape reminded Bilbo of the command tent where he'd found Bard and Thranduil. The sides were rolled down and the tent-flap closed.

"Master Oin!" the dwarrowdam at the front of the stretcher called - bellowed, really, a prodigiously loud one, and likely for the best when one considered the state of Oin's hearing.

"Busy!" came a sharp bark from within the tent, but Oin's face appeared from the flap a moment later nevertheless. His mouth compressed into a tight line when he saw who was on the stretcher. He bustled over to Thorin's opposite side, lifting Bilbo's sodden coat to get a good look at the worst injury. His face was unreadable, and Bilbo wasn't sure whether to be reassured that the old healer didn't flinch at the sight of the wound or nervous that Oin didn't immediately proclaim Thorin's recovery possible. "Bring him in. I've just gotten the lads settled - had to drug Fili to keep him from going back up that blasted hill and tearing all his stitches out."

Bilbo made to follow them into the tent, but to his consternation he was stopped by the firm pressure of a hand on his shoulder, and then Oin's bristling, bearded face was all he saw, blocking off his view of Thorin being transferred into a bed. "Look at me," Oin said gruffly.

"I'm fine," Bilbo said. "Worry about Thorin-"

"Eyes here," Oin said, interrupting like he hadn't heard Bilbo at all. He held up one finger. "Follow."

Impatiently, Bilbo tracked Oin's finger with his eyes, frustration rapidly rising. "It's nothing but a knock on the head! Thorin is _bleeding to death-_ "

Once again, he was ignored, Oin's fingers prodding gently at the tacky mess of blood in his hair. "Hmph," the old dwarf said. "Nothing feels broken, and you're tracking all right. Which means you're not injured. Out!"

Oin turned away from him, dismissing him without another word, and went to Thorin's bedside. Bilbo stood gaping for a moment, not sure he'd heard quite correctly. "Now you see here, Master Oin!"

"Lad," Oin said without turning around, and Bilbo was left to wonder whether he had actually heard the words or just the shrill insistence of Bilbo's voice. "I know you want to stay with him, but he needs a great deal of work, and you'd get in our way. Out."

Bilbo swallowed the next protest that tried to climb up his throat. He knew Oin was right - he would only be underfoot here in the tent, and the healers needed room to work. Thorin looked so helpless, though, silent and still and teetering on the brink, that Bilbo didn't want to leave him.

He backed toward the tent's door, fingers twisting around themselves, and looked around the for a likely place where he could perch out of the way. Fili and Kili lay quietly beside each other, their cots pushed together to create one large bed, Fili's hand clutching his brother's forearm. Kili's face was peaceful for all that half of it was covered by a bandage, but Fili's was troubled, his mouth drawn into a frown in his sleep. It would comfort him to wake and see his uncle there near him. Tauriel was nowhere to be seen, and Bilbo wondered if she had been unceremoniously ejected as well.

In the midst of barking for hot water and needles and bandages, Oin looked up and fixed Bilbo with a baleful glare. Bilbo raised his hands in surrender and backed out of the tent, heart twisting when the flap closed and he could see Thorin no more. After all the effort he had spent making sure he would be at Thorin's side, he felt quite at a loss now, with nothing more to do but wait.

His theory was correct about Tauriel, at least. Now that the awful urgency of getting Thorin to Oin was lifted, Bilbo had the presence of mind to look around. Perched on a crate beside the tent with her legs folded up under herself, Tauriel sat with her elbows on her knees, hunched, her red hair falling over her shoulders and obscuring her face. Wordlessly, Bilbo heaved another crate from nearby and pushed it up against hers, boosting himself up to sit.

She glanced at Bilbo when he sat down, but didn't speak at first. Bilbo was grateful for that. He felt wrung out, exhaustion seeping deep into his bones, and only the ever-present undercurrent of worry for Thorin kept him from curling up for a nap right there on the crate. He folded his hands over his middle and was startled to feel a hard lump tucked up near his waistband before remembering where he'd put the Arkenstone. He would have to figure out what to do with the damned thing soon, but it wasn't important now.

"I wasn't fast enough," Tauriel said at last. "I should have pulled him back."

"Dain told me Kili will be fine, in his estimation," Bilbo said. "Aside from the eye."

Tauriel let out a long, slow breath. "Without two good eyes, he might never shoot a bow again."

"I doubt he'll care about that. Not when he's alive, and his brother is alive, and his uncle-" Bilbo stopped, voice cracking, and Tauriel's face pinched further.

"The king...?" she pressed - gently, but it still set off a flood of tangled emotion. Indignation was part of it, but also a piercing, harrowing fear that had yet to dissipate.

"Thorin will be all right," Bilbo said, trying for firm, but his voice wavered at the end. "He - he has to be all right. After all this, after the quest and the dragon and the battle, he _must_ be."

Tauriel looked like she knew perfectly well that Bilbo was trying to convince himself, but she mercifully didn't say anything about it. Bilbo was having a hard enough time containing himself without someone pointing out that his hope was a fool's hope, and that Thorin had lost quite a lot of blood on top of who knew what other injuries.

A few moments later, a healer came out from the tent with a small bowl of water and a roll of gauze. He seemed to be about Ori's age, but his hands were sure and gentle as they cleaned the cut on Bilbo's head and wrapped it in bandages. He left without a word, leaving Bilbo and Tauriel alone once more. Bilbo wasn't sure how long the two of them sat together on the crates beside the tent. Bofur came limping up to join them as the sun dipped toward the horizon, his leg bandaged but not splinted, using his mattock as a crutch the same way Dain had used his warhammer. "Took a spear to it," he said cheerfully. "Bombur's already given me what-for about it, but the healers say I should still walk proper." He didn't ask about Thorin, but after a while he did flag down a passing healer and used that charming smile of his to convince her to bring them something to eat. 

Nor, when they joined them one by one, did Balin, Dwalin, or Bifur ask about the king. They simply pulled up crates and barrels close to where Bilbo and Tauriel kept vigil, settling down to wait, trading stories of particularly spectacular kills they'd made during the battle. Bilbo found that he couldn't keep his mind on the conversation, but none of the dwarves begrudged him when he fell silent, turning to stare at the closed flap of the tent.

The food was a thick stew, and it would have been a welcome change from weeks of thin rations had Bilbo been in the mood to enjoy it. As it was, he only knew he was quite hungry indeed by the speed at which he devoured it, for he didn't think he tasted a single bite. Some of the pangs in his stomach eased, but it seemed that most of them were from fretting, not hunger, and when Bilbo set the empty bowl aside, he resumed his quiet vigil.

Dusk fell. People came through to light the lamps - some Men had come, it seemed, to add on to the encampment and lend what help they could. They certainly had plenty of wounded to care for. The paths through the tents were never quiet, not even as night fell. Occasionally a shout would ring out, and the sound of quick-running feet. Bilbo saw the source of it, once - two white-faced healers bearing a stretcher with a still, bloodied form on it, bawling for all to clear way. He looked around the small gathering, taking note of which faces were missing.

"Where're Dori and his brothers?" Bilbo asked, finally prodded out of his concern for Thorin into concern for others.

"Nori is in something of a bad way," Bofur said. "Seems one of them troll buggers fell on him. Lots of bones that need setting. Dori and Ori are with him."

"But he'll be okay?"

"Aye, it'll take more than that to keep the thief down," Dwalin growled, but the annoyance in his voice was feigned, and Bilbo could hear care under it.

"And Gloin and Bombur?"

"Bombur's in the mess tent, complaining up a storm about having to feed an army," Bofur said. "Gloin, far's I know, is helping to clear up the stragglers on the battlefield. Daft, he is - couldn't imagine staying out there any longer myself."

Bilbo relaxed, assured that all the rest of the Company was fine - or on their way to it, in Nori's case. He cast about for another safe topic, something that would keep his mind off the king clinging to life in the tent behind him, but his usual polite desire to keep the conversation going was absent. And so his thoughts went to Thorin, as they always seemed to of late.

Not that Bilbo had ever doubted the way he felt about Thorin - not since the first time he had heard the lonely, deep rumble of his voice lifted in song all those months ago in Bag End - but if he had, this awful ache would confirm that he was hopelessly in love, beyond all reason and rationality. When he'd come upon Thorin atop Ravenhill, lying still and bleeding with his eyes shut, it seemed that his worst fears about the battle had come true. A hard lump rose in his throat when he realized he had been too busy fiercely denying Thorin's words of farewell to return his words of affection. It was too soon to lose Thorin now, before they even had a chance together. Fate could not be so cruel.

The low buzz of discontented voices interrupted his thoughts. Bilbo looked up and saw that, in defiance of all logic, two armed elves were making their way through camp, headed directly for the large tent. When they got close enough, Bilbo recognized them as the scouts, his two guards from Dale. The archer seemed to have come out of the battle only slightly worse for wear, his long dark hair mussed and smudges of dirt over his face and hands. His companion, the elf-maid with the longsword, bore a bandage on her cheek that had a bright spot of blood in its center. 

"Oh, it's you!" Bilbo said, hopping down from his seat on the crate. "I am glad to see you are both well, at least."

The elf maid regarded him with a very peculiar expression for a long moment before she said, "Please come with us, Master Baggins. We have been sent to collect you."

Tauriel's head came up and her eyes narrowed, and she said something sharp in Sindarin. Bilbo did not have the head for translation at the moment, but it was plainly a rebuke. The elf maid raised her eyebrows and answered, her tone droll and almost nasty, if it was within the dignity of elves to be nasty to one another. Tauriel flinched and bowed her head again, shoulders hunching further.

Bilbo scowled, hooking his thumbs in his sword belt. His fingers tapped restlessly on Sting's hilt. "I beg your pardon?"

"King Thranduil sent us to recover his prisoner," the archer said. "He was very clear in his instruction that we should convey you back to Dale, where..."

The archer trailed off into silence as the rattle of armor sounded from all around them. Bilbo glanced back over his shoulder to find Bofur, an uncharacteristically serious expression on his features, heaving himself to his feet with his mattock. He limped over to stand beside Bilbo, putting a hand on the hobbit's shoulder. Dwalin came to Bilbo's other side, still smudged with dark black blood. His knuckles were neatly bandaged, edges of white only just peeking out from under the knuckledusters, and the muscles in his arms bulged when he crossed them over his chest.

From the sound of it, Bifur and Balin took up their places behind them, and even Tauriel came to her feet and stood on Dwalin's other side, her slender fingers resting on the hilts of her knives. Other dwarves he did not know stepped up beside them to support their small band, silent but immovable. Bilbo could feel his face reddening further and further until he felt like he might catch flame, and a powerful desire to disappear had him clutching the bundle that held the Arkenstone and the ring through his mithril shirt.

He cleared his throat, diverting the two elves' attention from the silent, reproachful gazes of nearly two dozen dwarves. "Please deliver my utmost respect to King Thranduil, along with my regrets - I'm afraid it won't be possible for me to join him at this time. Once King Thorin has quite recovered, I am certain we will be able to meet and sort out... diplomatic arrangements. In the meantime, my place is at the king's side."

The elf maid's hand fell to her sword, and for a moment Bilbo was sure another battle would erupt right here in the middle of the healers' tents. Tension mounted, and Bilbo nervously discarded several half-formed ideas for trying to talk them all down before they did something unbearably ridiculous.

Luck, it seemed, was finally turning his way, as just when he thought someone was going to lose their patience and put their sword through someone else, a very familiar voice called, "Bilbo! There you are, I've been looking everywhere for you."

Gandalf's arrival served to immediately deflate both sides. It seemed that the elves and dwarves alike remembered what the wizard was capable of and exactly how little patience he had for these shenanigans. The two scouts' faces went carefully blank when Gandalf drew even with Bilbo and his small group of protectors.

"Ah, wonderful of Thranduil to send someone to check on Master Baggins," Gandalf said. "Run along then, he seems to be in one piece well enough."

The elf-maid turned and stalked off like a bad-tempered cat. The archer at least nodded to Bilbo before following his partner with a tiny, wry twist to his lips. Bilbo watched them go, still in disbelief. Had Thranduil seriously thought he would be parted from Thorin willingly, after all that had happened? Did he expect a mere two elves would be enough to pry him away?

"Bloody point-eared tree-shaggers," Dwalin grumbled. Tauriel blinked, opened her mouth, and then closed it again, apparently deciding that a retreat was the better part of valor. She took her seat on the crate again, settling in once more to wait.

"You do have quite the habit of showing up precisely before everything devolves into a disaster," Bilbo told Gandalf somewhat tartly. "Is it a natural talent, or is it something that you had to practice?"

Gandalf's bushy eyebrows raised and his beard bristled as he smiled. "I see the battle has drained you of none of your spirit. How is Thorin?"

Bilbo swallowed, looking back to the tent. "I don't know. He lost so much blood, and it's been hours since he went in there." He took a steadying breath. "I suppose we'll find out soon."

"Indeed," Gandalf said. "Now might be a good time to think about what you will say to him when he wakes."

"What I'll say?" Bilbo asked, momentarily confused. "You mean about the - oh! It's a good thing you're here - a moment, if you please." Without waiting to see if the wizard would follow, he excused himself from the dwarves and went to the back of the large tent. There was only a narrow walkspace between there and the tent behind it, and Bilbo was near certain they wouldn't be overheard.

Gandalf regarded him with something like amusement when he fished down the front of his mithril shirt and retrieved the cloth-wrapped bundle from within. He palmed the ring, keeping it hidden for reasons that weren't clear even to himself - it was such an inconsequential thing, after all, compared to the Arkenstone.

As the dirtied cloth fell away from it, the Arkenstone's multicolored gleam lit up the shadows around them. Bilbo watched its ever-changing colors for a moment, thinking that it certainly was a pretty thing, and at least it was as impressive to look at as the stories made it out to be.

"Here," he said finally, thrusting it at Gandalf. "Maybe you'll know what to do about the curse on the bloody thing. I don't dare take it near Thorin."

Gandalf's long, wrinkled fingers closed around the stone. The wizard propped his staff in the crook of his elbow and lifted it to eye level to examine, holding it up to the light of a torch, swiping a thumb over it, even bringing it to his nose for a good sniff. Finally, he knocked it against his staff, which seemed to do nothing to either stone or staff. Bilbo was beginning to get truly frustrated with wizards and their mysterious habits when Gandalf held the stone back out to him.

"Take it," he said. "No curse lies upon the Arkenstone, and none ever did. It is only a stone - a beautiful one, I'll grant, but nothing more."

Bilbo's mouth hung open until he realized it, and then he closed it with a snap. "No curse?"

"None," Gandalf said.

"You're certain?" Bilbo asked, weak-voiced, even as he reached out with a trembling hand to take the Arkenstone once more.

"I am a wizard, Bilbo, I believe I would know a curse when I saw one - like the pall that hangs over the mountain. I told Thorin with good reason not to enter Erebor without me."

"The mountain?" Bilbo repeated, not sure he was hearing correctly. "The curse is on the mountain?"

"On the treasure hoard, to be precise," Gandalf said. "There are many evil things in this world, Bilbo Baggins, but dragons are one of the worst of them. They came from the hand of Morgoth himself, twisted creatures driven by greed and the want of destruction. There is little that is more dangerous to the mind than a dragon's hoard - it is that, I fear, that was the source of Thorin's madness of late."

"The dragon," Bilbo said flatly. "Not the stone."

"Not the stone," Gandalf confirmed. "It seems to have resisted the dragon's evil. A very special thing indeed - the heart of the mountain."

Bilbo stared at the shimmering Arkenstone in his hand, a protest bubbling up from him unbidden. "If it was the dragon, then how is it Thorin's grandfather suffered as well? I don't claim to be an expert in Erebor's history, but I certainly remember Elrond saying that his grandfather was not himself _well_ before the dragon came, and that his father succumbed to the same malady! Explain that, if it was not the Arkenstone!"

"Explain that if it was the Arkenstone - for it sat beneath Smaug's talons as the dwarves of Erebor fled west, and Thrain did not begin to fall to the sickness until much later."

"Well if it wasn't the stone, and it wasn't the dragon, what was it?" Bilbo asked, quite disturbed by this line of thought. If the Arkenstone was not to blame for Thorin's behavior, then everything Bilbo had done was misguided at best. He had stolen the stone and kept it hidden, right beneath Thorin's nose, even as he could see Thorin getting worse. He had even considered using it as a bargaining chip! The heirloom of Thorin's house! His stomach twisted nervously. He would have to give it _back,_ and therefore explain where he'd gotten it from.

"I have my own theories on that count," Gandalf said. "Suffice it to say that the stone is safe, but the mountain is not. I wished to find you before I made my way there to survey the extent of the damage. Thorin will likely protest, but I trust you will be able to impress upon him the importance of staying out of Erebor until my work is finished. Won't you?"

"Won't I- yes, yes, of course, as if I would let him out of bed within the next month if I had anything to say about it," Bilbo said, and then went red from the tips of his ears to his collarbones. "Because of his injuries, of course!" he added in a squeak, too aware of what that had sounded like, oh mercy, he was lucky Bofur wasn't within earshot.

"Good!" Gandalf said, either oblivious to or kindly ignoring his embarrassment. "All the dwarves, mind, not just Thorin. None of them are to go into Erebor until I am through. Smaug's curse seems particularly strong - I imagine it had something to do with why none of the Company were willing to oppose Thorin, and it seems to have affected those who have not even stepped foot inside the mountain."

Bilbo found that he was gaping again, thoroughly flabbergasted. "You mean - Thranduil and the gate - the curse was why he was being so confoundedly irritating? Demanding half the treasure. Here I thought it was just more of his ridiculous grudge against Thorin."

"I believe it serves as good an explanation as any, unless he would like to offer one up himself," Gandalf said. "Bard may have been affected as well, although his case had true urgency, so it is difficult to tell whether he turned to armed conflict out of desperation or out of unnatural greed."

Quite flustered, Bilbo looked down at the Arkenstone shimmering in his hands. He had put so much importance on this object - had poured as much of his efforts into keeping it safe and hidden as he had keeping Thorin present and grounded. Now, to hear Gandalf say that it was merely a stone made him feel quite foolish indeed. How could he possibly tell Thorin the truth, that he had deceived him from the moment he had entered the mountain? Well, all right, there was the threatening with the sword bit, and Balin had said the stone might make it worse - but those were just excuses. Thorin had trusted him, and he had _lied._

"Bilbo," Gandalf said, his voice kind. "I'm sure Thorin will understand that whatever you did, it was because you thought it best. I spoke with Balin shortly after the battle. From what he has told me, Thorin pulled _himself_ from his madness, and there are only two things that can break through such a great evil."

"Oh yes, and what would they be?" Bilbo asked, still cross with himself despite the wizard's words.

"Hope," Gandalf said, "and love. I don't believe I have to tell you which it was for Thorin - if indeed it wasn't both."

Just like that, the indignation was gone, replaced by a distinctly warm feeling nestled in Bilbo's chest. Thorin's words atop Ravenhill had made his feelings abundantly clear, even if Bilbo still couldn't quite believe that _he_ could be the object of Thorin's affections. With such evidence right before his nose, though, he would be a fool to deny it, and an even bigger fool to question it. He'd had precious little good for himself in his life, and if a love that sounded like it had come from the storybooks was to be _his,_ he would grasp it in both hands and never let go.

He was a burglar, after all.

A soft smile pulled at his lips when he finally looked back up at Gandalf. "Off with you then, meddling wizard. See if you can't do some good for a change, instead of shoving folks along on uncomfortable adventures and disappearing at inconvenient times."

"I believe you have come to enjoy your uncomfortable adventure," Gandalf said, still amused.

"Yes, well," Bilbo said. He bundled the Arkenstone backup and slipped it down his shirt once more. "A great deal of it was rather horrid."

"And yet," Gandalf said, nodding toward the tent where Thorin lay.

"Oh, go on," Bilbo said, his eyes drawn to the canvas that separated him from Thorin. Gandalf gave a snort that was somehow still rather dignified and set off toward the edge of camp in the direction of Erebor. He watched the wizard's progress toward the Lonely Mountain, and despite the worry still eating at the back of his mind for Thorin's injuries, his spirits felt much lighter. Regardless of the actual source of the madness, Bilbo had always been certain that it didn't come from Thorin himself. To have that confirmed was cheering, and it would be especially cheering for Thorin to know as well.

"Master Baggins!" a gruff voice called from the front of the tent. "Blast that hobbit! Can't get him out of my way when he's in the way, and then when you need him he's nowhere to be found!"

"I say, there's no call for that!" Bilbo said, marching around to the front of the tent. Oin was there, his sleeves spattered in blood and a scowl on his face.

"He's awake," Oin said.

Bilbo's heart set to pounding again. "Is he - will he-"

"Thorin's too stubborn to be killed," Oin said, although there was a look in his eye that said it had been very close indeed. "We've got the wound sewed up and bandaged. Don't tell him I ever said it, but it's a good job he got sliced open where he did. It made it easier for us to put his ribs proper - fool fought on them so long he'd pushed them all out of place. His shoulder wasn't broken, just dislocated. He needs rest, and he's not like to sit still for it unless you go to him, so get going. He's asking for you."

At this rate, Bilbo was never going to get rid of this blush. With a brief apologetic look to Tauriel - he made a mental note to argue for her presence in the tent just as soon as he made sure Thorin would rest properly - he entered.

Bilbo spared a look for the boys and found them both still soundly asleep. At some point Kili had curled closer to his brother, still on his back but wedged against Fili's side. They looked very young, he realized - not for the first time.

"Oin tells me they'll be fine," Thorin rasped, and Bilbo turned to see a soft light in his eyes as he looked at his nephews. It didn't leave his gaze when he turned it upon Bilbo instead, only shone brighter.

"Yes," Bilbo said. "They're not certain about Kili's eye, and Fili is a poor patient, but they will be well again." Thorin looked awfully pale, especially in the wan light of the lamp. A great swath of bandage covered his chest, binding his ribs and the horrible wound alike.

"So will I," Thorin said. "I thought-"

"What did you think?" Bilbo looked him over again, cataloging the bruises and scrapes, the purpling of his left shoulder, the gash over his brow. Ire rose up in him, replacing the dreadful fear he'd carried since the battlefield. "I told you that you weren't going anywhere- how _dare_ you, Thorin!" He stormed over to the bed, so as to better hiss at Thorin through clenched teeth. He didn't want to wake the boys, but he wanted no mistake made about how _angry_ he was. "'Farewell' indeed! What did you mean saying goodbye to me on that hill- I am hardly going to let you go yet!"

"Are you..." Thorin looked up at Bilbo. The small smile that had stolen over his face tilted a little into bewilderment. "Are you scolding me for getting wounded in battle?"

"Yes! You thought you were going to _die!_ I will remember what you said to me up there for the rest of my _life,_ Thorin, and it's likely it will terrify me every time! I might not have seen you fighting that monster but I _know_ you took risks you shouldn't have! You are _never_ allowed to do that to me again, do you hear me?" Bilbo finished his quiet, fierce tirade with his fists clenched, breathing hard, his vision wavering wetly.

Thorin reached for him with his good hand, and like he had on Ravenhill, Bilbo grabbed it. Thorin tugged, and he stepped closer, clutching Thorin's hand to his chest in both of his. "Bilbo, I'm sorry," Thorin said. "I needed to be rid of him once and for all. I couldn't just walk away."

"I never want to see you like that again," Bilbo said. "I can't lose you."

At odds with the scolding, Thorin smiled again. His gloves were gone, and the hand Bilbo held was bare. Thorin curled his fingers around Bilbo's, weakly returning the grip as he had been unable to do before. "You won't," he said. "If you allow it - if you would have it - I will never be parted from you again."

"Thorin," Bilbo said, hushed.

"Bilbo Baggins, I would plight thee my troth." Thorin's voice was equally soft, deep and comforting. "I would live out the rest of my days with you by my side, wherever you wish to go. We could go back to the Shire, and leave the throne to Fili. Or you could stay here, and rule by my side as King's Consort."

"Oh, I-" Bilbo couldn't look away from the tenderness all over Thorin's face, even bruised and bloodied under his bandages. He stepped closer still, the knuckles of their joined hands propped under his chin and Thorin's arm hugged to his chest. 

A hard lump dug into his belly above his belt, and he jolted, the warm feeling doused away like a shock of cold water. "This is- I- Thorin, I'm- of course I _want_ to but there is something I must tell you first. And - and something I must give you, since Gandalf said it was all right."

Thorin seemed like he was still stuck on the 'I want to' part of that sentence. "Gandalf?" he asked, the softness in his expression shifting to confusion once more.

Bilbo untangled himself reluctantly and fished down the front of his shirt again. He went to the low table beside the bed and set it down with a soft thump that felt final. After a long, deep breath, he threw aside the wrappings, letting the glow spill out into the tent.

"The Arkenstone," Thorin whispered. He watched the shifting light of it for the span of a few breaths before looking to Bilbo, something akin to awe on his face. "You found it."

"Yes, I found it," Bilbo said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At least this cliffhanger isn't as bad as the last one :D
> 
> Updates should proceed fairly quickly from here. All is finished, I just need to read through it a few more times. My two wonderful betas did me a huge favor working on this, thank you both!


	6. Chapter 6

The lights of the Arkenstone playing about the inside of the tent outshone the candles and bathed Bilbo's face in a soft silver glow. Thorin's eye was drawn to it - not as he'd been drawn to the gold in the mountain, but because it was remarkable, and because he had thought it surely was buried beneath the bulk of the treasure.

At the same time, he could not stare only at the Arkenstone. Bilbo's face was still dirt and blood-stained, his coat absent and the mithril shirt marred by little black smudges of orc blood. Thorin's eyes tracked over him, looking for any other injuries besides the bandage wrapped around his head. Something was not right - when Thorin daydreamed of Bilbo presenting him with the Arkenstone, both before they entered the mountain and later in the depths of his sickness, it was a moment of triumph. In his mind's eye he had imagined that Bilbo's smile would shine brighter than the stone itself.

But Bilbo fidgeted, his hands clasped before him, picking at the grime underneath his fingernails. He had stepped back out of reach, not looking at the Arkenstone. Neither did he look at Thorin for longer than seconds at a time, his eyes flicking up to Thorin's only to fix again on the floor, or the tent wall.

"Bilbo?" Thorin prodded. Whatever was bothering him, it was obviously connected to the Arkenstone, and he didn't want to see Bilbo like this when they had finally accomplished all they had worked for.

"I've _had_ it," Bilbo said, with the air of someone blurting out a secret they had held for far too long. "Since before you came into the mountain. I took it from the hoard, and I kept it hidden this whole time."

Thorin looked from Bilbo to the stone and back, taking note of the way Bilbo shifted uneasily, how he ducked his head and hunched his shoulders as if he was expecting - what? Anger? Did he think Thorin would shout and send him away?

The confession baffled him. Although his recollections of what transpired in the mountain were hazy, as if he watched them from underwater or through a film of fog, he did recall Bilbo at his side on several occasions when he had ordered the others to search for the stone - yet he had kept it hidden.

"Why?" Thorin asked. His fingers itched to feel Bilbo's entangled with them again. Bilbo's guilt and nervousness were obvious, and Thorin would rather they have this conversation together than standing at arm's length.

"Because I thought it would make it worse! I thought - I thought the thing was _cursed,_ and I didn't want it anywhere near you!" Bilbo said, and when he finally did look at Thorin, there was so much worry in his face that Thorin couldn't help himself - he reached for Bilbo again, twitching his fingers. Bilbo took a step closer, not quite within grabbing range, but Thorin counted it as progress.

"You thought the _Arkenstone_ was cursed?" Thorin asked, his eyes going to the stone again.

"What was I supposed to think? It fit - at least, I thought it fit, and you were... odd from the second you stepped into the mountain. Smaug said-" Bilbo cut himself off with a little head shake and a grimace. "The dragon said it would drive you mad. I shouldn't have listened - certainly didn't _want_ to listen to any of the lies that creature spun - but... the first thing you did in the mountain was-"

"Was hold you at sword-point and demand the stone," Thorin said. He felt his throat constrict, a heavy feeling settling into his gut. "It is no wonder you thought some kind of magic was to blame."

"But I was _wrong,_ don't you see? Gandalf looked it over and said there never was a curse on the Arkenstone!" Bilbo's distress was growing, and now he flapped his hands and twisted them together. "I was ready to - to trade it for the promise of peace, if it would get the blasted thing _away_ from you."

Thorin shoved aside the sharp stab of ire that pierced through him at the thought of the elvenking laying his hands on the Arkenstone. Oddly, that was the only piece of Bilbo's words that provoked any kind of anger. It would make sense for him to feel betrayed, and yet he didn't. "You did what you thought best-"

"I panicked, and I went to _Thranduil_ of all people." Bilbo's mouth twisted in that grimace again. "Then I thought, if the stone was cursed, I couldn't let him get ahold of it - not with the wretched way he was behaving."

A smile pulled at Thorin's lips. Only Bilbo would describe bringing an army to his doorstep as 'wretched behavior.' "So you offered them your share of the treasure."

"Yes," Bilbo said. "I thought if I gave Bard what we had agreed on - no, Thorin, don't you start!"

Thorin's eyes had fallen to the blanket as soon as the agreement with Bard was mentioned, and he let his hand drop back to the bedspread, twisting it in his fingers. "Why shouldn't I? You were right. I swore on my honor, you vouched for that promise on your own honor, and then I threw it away like it meant nothing."

"You were _ill,_ " Bilbo said insistently. "I will not allow you to beat yourself up for whatever you did when you weren't yourself, and that is final."

"Then I will not allow you to wallow in guilt over actions you took in an effort to save me from it," Thorin said, reaching out for him once again. "I suppose it was after you offered them the fourteenth of the treasure that the damned elf decided to hold you hostage for it."

Bilbo's hand hovered over Thorin's hesitantly, and he still couldn't meet Thorin's eyes. "Yes and no," he said. "Yes, neither Thranduil nor Bard believed that you would release any amount of gold to me, whether my claim on it was legitimate or not. No, the ransom wasn't Thranduil's idea." He took a long, deep breath. "It was mine."

Thorin's fingers froze. "Yours?"

"In a manner of speaking," Bilbo said with a little half-shrug. "I meant it as a jest - at that point I would have said anything if I thought they would agree to take their armies and go home. It was... it was actually Bard who thought it might work. Oh, blast, come to think of it, that must have been why he looked so apologetic when he suggested you would part with anything to see me safe - he thought he was spreading our business around, and we hadn't even figured ourselves out." Bilbo shook his head, a wry twist to his lips.

"He was right. I would have - I _would_ give everything to have you safe," Thorin said. To his fascination, Bilbo turned red - the blush started at the tips of his ears, spilling over his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. Finally, Bilbo's hand settled in his again, and he tugged the hobbit closer.

"I know that _now,_ " Bilbo said. "I thought it was a ridiculous notion when they suggested it. It took Gandalf to convince Thranduil-"

"Gandalf was in on this?" Thorin asked, utterly unsurprised by that revelation.

"Ah, yes, he- at first he was skeptical, and then he saw this." Bilbo tugged at the mithril shirt he still wore, the links of it shining in the Arkenstone's light. "He was quite convinced, then."

Thorin felt his own cheeks reddening. "I believe I intended that as a courting gift," he said. "It's not... there are many things that aren't clear in my memory, but that I remember well enough."

He didn't think it was possible for Bilbo to blush any harder, but he was positively glowing with it now, his eyes flicking up to Thorin's and back down to their joined hands, and he gave a small cough like he was clearing his throat. "Anyhow, the agreement was _not_ for Thranduil to demand half the treasury. The nerve! I quite nearly gave the whole thing away, I was so furious. Taking advantage like that! Ah, well, I suppose I must forgive him for it, with the curse and all-"

"Gandalf said the Arkenstone was not cursed," Thorin said sharply, frowning at the thought of Bilbo forgiving Thranduil for _any_ of his actions of late.

"Yes, that's true," Bilbo said, shifting uncomfortably again. "The Arkenstone is not. But the treasure is. Something about dragons brooding over a hoard and leaving evil in their wake - Gandalf has gone off to Erebor to see what he might do about lifting it."

Thorin's head fell back against the pillows and he stared at the ceiling of the tent. A peculiar feeling warred with the shame that gripped his heart, something almost like relief. Thorin swallowed, uncertain he had heard correctly. "Smaug was to blame?"

"This time," Bilbo said. "I don't... I don't know what it was for your grandfather, if it was not the Arkenstone and the dragon had not yet come, but Gandalf is quite confident that once he is able to expel whatever Smaug left behind, it will be safe to enter the mountain."

Thorin recalled the wizard's warning not to go into Erebor without him, and Balin's words outside the hidden door. "I should not have pressed us forward so quickly. I was warned-"

"Thorin," Bilbo said gently, squeezing their joined hands. "It was too much to ask for you to wait on the doorstep until Gandalf returned from wherever it was he had gone to, not after so many years of waiting. If he was so concerned about the possibility of a dragon's curse lying on the treasury, he should not have scarpered off before Mirkwood. You are not to blame. Not for the illness, or any of your actions while you were under it. We can tidily put the whole business at Smaug's claws, if you will let yourself, and I think you should."

"There have been many who called the line of Durin itself cursed," he said. "You were with me to hear Lord Elrond's words in Rivendell."

"I never believed it," Bilbo said fiercely. "I still don't. There is nothing _wrong_ with you, Thorin."

The firm insistence in Bilbo's voice punctured the regret and blame that stuck in his throat. He turned his eyes to Bilbo's again and found nothing but kindness there - he could see no lingering resentment, as he had half-expected. _This is why I fell in love with him,_ Thorin thought. _The boundless capacity for selflessness and good sense._ Thorin felt lighter, and unbidden, a short chuckle broke from his chest, although the dull pain in his ribs made him hiss and wheeze at the end of it. "Even after all that I have done, you still have such faith in me?" he asked softly.

"I told you," Bilbo said. "You weren't yourself." He ducked his head, peering at Thorin through the fringe of his hair. "Even after knowing I created a conspiracy to trick you into giving up the gold - knowing that I stole the Arkenstone and kept it hidden from you, that I lied to you about it - you would still have me by your side?"

Thorin felt as if his smile would split his face. He tugged at Bilbo's hand to pull the hobbit closer, for he didn't have the strength to rise. "Bilbo, when I was lost to the sickness and drowning in despair, it was _your_ voice that pulled me back from it - yours and Fili's."

"Oh," Bilbo said, in a very small voice, and then he gave a short laugh. "That - that reminds me of something Gandalf said."

"And what did Gandalf say?" Thorin asked, pulling insistently on Bilbo's hand. Bilbo leaned in closer still, until there was naught between them but bare inches and breath.

"He said that there are only two things that can break through a great evil - hope and love." Bilbo's voice wavered on the last word, and a disbelieving thought floated through the back of Thorin's mind, that Bilbo may yet doubt.

He leaned up to close those inches, ignoring the flare of pain in his ribs and pressed their lips together. The kiss was gentle and warm, a chaste meeting of mouths and mingling of breaths. Thorin wanted it to continue long enough for him to memorize every detail of the moment, from the tiny, surprised noise Bilbo made to the way Bilbo's free hand rested over his heart as if reassuring himself that Thorin was alive, but his strength eventually failed him and he had to lie back with a thump on the pillows. "The only thing I did in my sickness that I am not ashamed of was agreeing to pay the ransom," he said. He couldn't rise to kiss Bilbo again, so he pulled their joined hands to his mouth and laid his lips on the back of Bilbo's hand. "The thought of losing you was more than I could bear. It was love of you and hope of seeing you again that drove the madness from me. And... hope that my affections might be returned."

Bilbo laughed again, a bright, merry sound that seemed to chase the last of the shadows from Thorin's heart. "Of course I love you, you silly dwarf," he said, and it was he who kissed Thorin this time. "If you can forgive me for deceiving you-"

"There is nothing to forgive," Thorin insisted.

Bilbo's smile was brilliant and relieved all at once, and now the sight matched his imaginings, Bilbo's face lit up by the multicolored gleam of the Arkenstone and the light of his smile alike. "Then, Thorin Oakenshield, I would give to thee my hand in marriage, if you wish it. I - I know it's a bit quick, going into an engagement when we've only just gotten this sorted-"

"I do wish it," Thorin said. Surely he would never be happier in his life than he was in this moment. "I can think of nothing in this world I wish more. I have loved you without hope of return for so long, and then was nearly taken from your side. I wish to waste no more of the time we have together."

"Oh?" Bilbo asked. "And how long did you brood and pine after me in silence?"

"Since the Carrock. Since the last thing I saw when I thought death was certain was you throwing yourself between me and my enemy. Perhaps before that, but I was... I was sure it was only an infatuation." The smile that would not leave his face deepened. "Because you are so lovely to look upon."

"Oh, stop," Bilbo said, shaking his head. "We are _such_ a pair. I was lost for you from the time I heard you sing - certain of course that it was only infatuation, since you were so... you. Noble and proud and handsome."

Thorin laughed again, wincing with it but uncaring. "We could have had all that time."

"Well, it's no matter. We have it now. King's Consort," Bilbo said slowly, as if he was trying the title out on his tongue. Thorin's heart tripped, and he knew that the smile on his face had certainly turned daft. "Who ever would have thought? I'm certain none of my relatives back in the Shire will believe it. Oh my - I'll have to write to them and make arrangements for Bag End, since I don't plan on returning-"

"You'll stay in Erebor?" Thorin asked. Idly, he wondered if it were possible for someone to perish from too much happiness. His kingdom was won, his nephews were safe, and Bilbo returned his love. He knew that at some point he would have to emerge into the reality of the battle's aftermath, but for now, he would relish every second of it.

"Of course!" Bilbo said, and kissed him again. Thorin was certain he would never get enough of that. "You would be a great fool indeed to think that I would go back now, after all the work we put into winning this mountain. Once it's safe, that is - oh, which reminds me, you should make some kind of... decree, I suppose. Gandalf has said that none are to enter the mountain until he finishes lifting the curse-"

"I am in no shape to be making royal decrees," Thorin said.

"Oh, but-" Bilbo began, his hand fidgeting a bit in Thorin's grip.

"You will have to do it for me," Thorin interrupted, smiling in satisfaction at Bilbo's open-mouthed expression. "You will be just as much ruler as I, after all."

That surprised another bright laugh from his hobbit. "Stars above. Of all the things I thought might happen at the end of this adventure, this was certainly not one of them - not that I'm complaining, you understand, but... are you certain it would be all right? I'm not - nothing is official yet, after all, and I am only a hobbit-"

"Bilbo," Thorin said, cutting off that little bit of self-deprecation. "You outwitted trolls and that terrifying creature in the goblin tunnels, and you saved my life afterward. You saved the Company from the spiders in Mirkwood, and then rescued us _all_ from the dungeons. You walked into Erebor, alone, to face Smaug when even I dared not. Now you have saved my life once more. You are not 'only' anything, and certainly not 'only a hobbit.'" He fumbled with the bead clasped at the end of his braid. When he had worked it free of his hair, he reached up to brush some of Bilbo's curls behind his left ear, twisting them together one-handed. "If you are concerned about making things official, this ought to do. I should braid it in, but I only have one good hand at the moment."

Bilbo settled on the edge of the bed as Thorin worked, perfectly still and bright-eyed, a pink tinge still to his cheeks and the tips of his ears. Thorin's fingers slowed their movements, savoring the closeness and the ability to touch. He had longed for this without believing it a possibility for months - and perhaps he couldn't fault Bilbo for his uncertainty, since it felt as if he was wandering through a dream himself. Finally, he had the bead clasped around the end of a neat twist of curls.

Bilbo's hand went up to it, his thumb rubbing over the surface of the bead. "And this is as good as an engagement ring, as far as dwarves are concerned?" he asked.

"Is that how hobbits propose?"

"Yes," Bilbo said. "Traditionally it's worn on the third finger of the left hand."

Thorin caught Bilbo's hand again, bringing the finger in question to his lips and kissing the knuckle. "As soon as it is safe to light the great forges once more, I will craft you an engagement ring," he said.

"Oh, now!" Bilbo said, shaking his head with a fond smile. "You've already given me two courting gifts, and I have yet to even give you one. I can't say I could make it myself, but if we were to be doing this properly, it should be me that gives you a ring."

"If you think you can stop me from showering you in treasures, you are quite mistaken," Thorin said, amused. "You will have beads for your hair and cuffs for your ears, a circlet to wear to court - anklets, since I imagine you can't be bothered to wear boots-"

"Boots on a hobbit! What a notion," Bilbo said. "But Thorin, I don't need jewels and gifts. Your love is more than I ever expected or hoped for."

"Will you deprive me the chance to show that my Consort is the most comely creature in all of Erebor?" Thorin asked teasingly, and then chuckled to see his hobbit reduced to blushing and sputtered protests.

Oin barged back into the tent then, took one look at Bilbo and Thorin, and snorted. "I doubt I'll be able to convince you to clear out," Oin said gruffly.

Bilbo's fingers tightened on Thorin's and he shook his head. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Hmph," the old healer grunted. "Well, stay off his left side, and don't keep him awake. Mind you keep him from trying to rule from his sickbed. Even kings need rest."

"That won't be a problem," Thorin said, raising his voice to be heard in Oin's ear trumpet. "As King's Consort, Bilbo will be handling matters of state until I am recovered."

"Thorin!" Bilbo protested, indignant. "I don't know the first thing about ruling a kingdom!"

"You will have Balin to advise you," Thorin said, in a tone he thought was reasonable. It must have had too much amusement in it, for Bilbo gave him a narrow-eyed look that promised he would pay for this at some point in the future.

"Well, then, if I'm to be handling matters of state, there's the matter of the prince's lady-love pining away outside the tent," Bilbo said, quite primly. "If I can be in here, I see no reason why she can't."

"You don't mean that _elf,_ " Thorin said, dismayed. He had expected Bilbo's revenge to be a long time in coming. This was a bit too immediate for his tastes.

"Yes, that elf. The one who saved Kili's life, and I'll thank you to remember it. Tauriel!" he called, ignoring the face Thorin pulled. "Tauriel, you can come in if you'd like."

The elf cautiously peeked her head into the tent, her eyes going straight to Kili at first but then traveling nervously to Oin and Thorin. "Are you sure it's all right?" she asked, soft and subdued.

Bilbo leveled him with a very stern look, and Thorin couldn't help but grin, the smile only widening when Bilbo's scowl deepened. "Thorin Oakenshield, do not even _think_ of denying that poor girl! After being exiled and stuck in the middle of a battle and watching Kili take that awful blow to the head-"

"Yes, it's all right," Thorin said. "Otherwise my consort might continue sharpening his tongue on me, and I am meant to be recovering."

Bilbo snorted and smacked him - gently - on his good shoulder. "Stop teasing her, can't you see she's worried sick?" Despite the light scolding and his attempts to seem stern, his ears went a little pink again when Thorin referred to him as 'my consort.'

Tauriel, a faint smile on her lips, folded herself down to kneel at Kili's bedside, taking his hand in hers and resting her head on his chest. Thorin watched her eyes fall shut and all the lines of her body relax, and was certain she was asleep in seconds, comforted by Kili's presence. "We might wish to send for another cot, later. And a spare blanket," Thorin whispered.

"Why, you softy," Bilbo said.

Oin came to his other side, checking the bandages on his chest to make sure they were not still bleeding. Thorin was still in a great deal of pain, but he had not wanted to drink anything that would put him to sleep before he had a chance to see Bilbo. Now, Oin mixed up a cup of medicine that smelled sickly-sweet. Thorin recognized the scent of poppy and braced himself for the taste.

"All of it," the healer said. Bilbo helped Thorin prop himself up, pulling a commiserating face at the smell of the drink. It did taste foul, cloying and bitter all at once. Thorin forced himself to drain the cup. "That should have you asleep in a few moments. Your body needs rest to restore itself, and will be needing it for quite a while yet. If you can stand it, I'd like not to give you too much of this. Not good for the mind."

Already, Thorin could feel a fuzziness descending on him that felt far too much like what he'd fought through in the mountain for his comfort. "You'll stay?" he asked Bilbo, clinging to his hand.

"Silly dwarf," Bilbo said. "Budge over."

Thorin tried to shift himself and grunted. Oin said something under his breath in Khuzdul about stubborn kings and their equally stubborn hobbits and helped him move. Once there was enough room, Bilbo slipped under the blanket beside him, carefully settling against Thorin's uninjured side, a ball of soft warmth that set Thorin's heart at ease. His eyelids drooped heavily, the poppy milk working fast in his exhausted state. It would give him strange dreams, but Bilbo would be there when he woke from them.

In the middle of that night, Thorin woke to a hair-raising yell and a thump. Bilbo sat up abruptly at his side, flinging the blankets off and rolling out of bed. Thorin's eyes were heavy with the lingering effects of the poppy, and everything felt as if it was coming through a fog. He turned his head to see Fili clutching the wound in his shoulder, cursing under his breath and swaying on his feet, wild-eyed.

"Thorin-"

"Thorin is right over there, asleep just as you should be," Bilbo said, approaching Fili slowly, his tone gentle as if he was trying to calm a skittish pony. "He'll be fine. Everyone will be fine."

Muzzily, Thorin watched Bilbo steer his eldest nephew back to his cot through half-open eyes. Fili looked confused and lost, gaze darting around the tent until it fell on Thorin. He made a strangled noise and practically collapsed, burying his head in his hands. Tauriel, curled up in a third cot on Kili's other side, woke at the sound. She propped herself up on her elbow for only a moment and then quietly laid back down, rolling to her other side to give Fili privacy.

"I thought- I thought-" Fili said, choked and wet and muffled by the press of his hands.

"I know," Bilbo said. "I _know._ But he's going to be all right, Oin patched him up right as rain."

An ache seized Thorin's heart and he swallowed against a sudden tightness in his throat, watching Fili's shoulders shake. Wordlessly, Bilbo settled on the cot beside him and put his arms around Fili, drawing him close. Fili clutched at the sleeves of Bilbo's shirt, his head buried in the hobbit's chest as Thorin had see him do with Dis when he was only a small child. Bilbo made soothing noises, rubbing circles on Fili's back, and Thorin fell asleep again to the sound of Fili's strangled sobs of relief and Bilbo's hushed words of comfort.

In the morning Bilbo was there at Kili's side, too, when Oin came to change the bandages. He held Kili's left hand as Tauriel clutched his right, and once again Thorin could only watch. The swath of white fell away to reveal a deep gash that started below Kili's ear at the hinge of his jaw, traveling up across his right eye, over his eyebrow, to his hairline. The eye was filmed over white, and Kili blinked rapidly, wincing, his entire frame seeming to shrink in on itself when the vision didn't return.

"I'm sorry," Tauriel said softly.

"It isn't your fault," Kili said, and he tried for a cheerful smile but could only manage one that was small and wan.

"Here now," Bilbo said, patting the hand that he held. "You're alive and hale, for the most part, and it isn't as if you can't fight anymore. Why, I'll wager you could learn to shoot with one good eye, couldn't he?"

Tauriel hesitated for a moment, and it was clear she didn't want to lie. Thorin's estimation of her rose, reluctantly, when she finally gave a small nod and said, "You will never be as good as you once were, but you will learn again."

Kili held still while Oin prodded the wound, muttering about filthy orcish blades, and smeared salve on it. "It's well enough," he said, a shadow of his irrepressible cheer coming into his voice again. "I was never going to be anywhere _near_ as good as you, and I'd rather be the sword at your side than be trying to out-shoot you."

Tauriel ducked her head, her hair falling over her face, and scooted closer to Kili until their sides were pressed together. Bilbo slowly let go of Kili's left hand, rising from the combined cots and bustling over to Thorin again as if he wasn't trying to give them a moment alone.

"Thank you," Thorin said softly, when Bilbo was close enough to hear. "I should be there for them."

"You should be resting," Bilbo said firmly, filling a cup of water from the pitcher at the bedside and urging him to drink. "I'll hear no more of 'I should' unless it's followed by 'I should sleep.'"

That set the pattern for the coming days, which crawled by at an infuriating pace. Oin and Bilbo joined forces to scold Thorin whenever it looked like he was thinking of rising from bed, and for the first week following the battle, the only opportunity he had to move was from the bed to the chamber pot and back. He had to grudgingly admit they were right. He felt weak and ungainly as a newly-born colt, his limbs refusing to cooperate with even the simplest commands, and the pain in his chest requiring him to drink more poppy than either he or Oin were comfortable with.

The Company all came to see Thorin at one point or another - all except Nori, who Oin complained was an even worse patient than Thorin himself. Dwalin glared at him for hours at first, until Thorin swallowed his pride and apologized for ordering his friend away on Ravenhill. Then Dwalin only looked back and forth between Thorin and Bilbo, who was wringing out a damp cloth to wipe sweat from Thorin's brow, and snorted. "It's about time the two of you got over yourselves. You were driving the lot of us around the bend."

The boys were declared fit to leave the tent only three days after the battle, leaving Thorin alone with Bilbo for long hours at a time. They spoke of their childhoods, Thorin listening eagerly to tales of Bilbo stealing pies from neighbors' windowsills and making off with a certain farmer's mushroom crops.

"So you were a burglar," Thorin said, nudging Bilbo with his elbow as they sat together on the cot.

"Oh, only in the manner that all hobbit fauntlings are burglars, at one point in their lives," Bilbo said. "When Gandalf shoved me out the door on this adventure, my pie-thieving days were well behind me."

"But not your treasure-thieving days," Thorin said. The Arkenstone was wrapped up and safely stowed beneath his pillow, and Bilbo's eyes darted to its hiding place.

"Yes, well, that was mostly unintentional," he said. "Drink your poppy and get some rest."

It was a rare thing that Bilbo left his side while he was awake, but Thorin knew that when he slept, Bilbo was handling the affairs of the kingdom - affairs he _should_ be handling himself. It rankled that he was still abed while his people looked to him for guidance, but Bilbo seemed to take to diplomacy as if he was born to it. More than once, Thorin woke to hear a conversation out front of the tent, with Bilbo firmly telling someone that Thorin was sleeping, and would hear their concern as soon as he was well. On one quite memorable occasion, he pulled himself from the well of sleep to the sound of raised voices out front of his tent flap.

"-our home! We are on its doorstep! Who are you to say we cannot enter?"

"Someone who is wise enough to listen to the warnings of wizards when they're given," Bilbo said, and Thorin was surprised to hear sharp rebuke in his voice. His hobbit had been unfailingly patient with Thorin's fits of temper, borne from the frustration of lying abed. "Erebor _has_ been recovered and we _will_ begin the rebuilding as soon as it is safe."

"Recovered! None of us have so much as seen the King, and there are _elves_ still camped on our doorstep! If we do not act, they will march on the mountain and take it from under us!" The dwarf's voice was strident and loud, carrying over the tents, and Thorin clenched his teeth, preparing to heave himself up to go support his consort.

"Now you see here!" Bilbo said, and Thorin paused in his movements. Bilbo in a temper was something he had only seen once, but he knew it was an impressive sight. "Erebor is off limits by order of the King, thank you very much! The very last thing we need is a contingent of dwarves going into that mountain before the curse has been lifted! Or do you mean to say you think you would do a better job of resisting the madness than King Thorin himself?"

There was an expectant silence, the kind that could only come from a crowd waiting for an answer. Thorin wished he was out there to see it, but he could imagine Bilbo drawn up to his full height, his brows scrunched together and his mouth pulled down in a frown, most likely shaking his finger at the dwarf like he was scolding a child. He had neatly backed the stubborn petitioner into a corner - he could not very well put himself above the King, or countermand a royal order.

"No," the dwarf said finally, almost a grunt.

"You will address him as Lord Consort," came Balin's voice, and Thorin relaxed. As long as Balin was there to back Bilbo up, his people would surely listen.

"No, Lord Consort," the dwarf said, sounding like he was spitting it out through gritted teeth.

"If there is nothing else?" Bilbo asked, his voice deceptively mild. There was the shuffle of feet and the clanking of armor, and then Bilbo entered the tent, shaking his head.

"You handled that well," Thorin said.

"I believe I've gotten quite good at managing stubborn dwarves over these past months," Bilbo said, coming to Thorin's bedside and fussing with the blankets. "It's no more challenging than ejecting particularly bothersome relatives who are eternally after my silver."

Not all matters, however, could be deferred until the King was well. Thorin received daily missives from the two other kings still lingering around the encampment. Bard's were at least polite, inquiring after his health in a way that still managed to delicately ask when he would be well enough to meet. Thranduil sent increasingly sarcastic well-wishes which Thorin snuck into the flame of his bedside candles when Bilbo wasn't looking. Dain came to visit in the evenings, catching them up on what transpired in the camp and chuckling over the elvenking's frustration.

Eight days after the battle, Thorin finally emerged from the tent. The crown had not yet been recovered from Erebor - and Thorin was yet unsure he _wanted_ his grandfather's crown to be the symbol of his rule - so he wore no trappings of his office as he and Bilbo went to finally resolve the matter of the gold. He was not fit to ride, so he had to make do with an uncomfortable trip in a small cart usually used for transporting barrels. It was all quite beneath his station, but Thorin found it comfortingly familiar - nobody had treated him like a king in the long years of his exile, and it would have felt strange to stand on ceremony when he could barely stand at all.

"King Thorin," Bard said, as he limped into the tent, leaning on Bilbo. "It's good to see you recovering."

Someone, most likely Bilbo, had thoughtfully ordered a padded seat set for him in the large tent set aside for the meeting. Even the short walk from the cart to the tent had robbed him of his breath, and he nodded wordlessly in response to Bard's greeting and lowered himself into it.

"Yes, it would have been a shame if you were any worse injured," Thranduil said dryly. "I have been too long away from my kingdom as it is."

"I do not recall anyone asking you to come, or to remain," Thorin said, trying not to sound out of breath. "You are free to take your leave whenever you wish."

"The Greenwood has long been allied with the Men of Lake-town," Thranduil said. "It would have been remiss of us not to come in their hour of need."

"Indeed," Thorin said, an old, quiet fury rising in him. "As remiss as long-held alliances forgotten in the face of dragon fire."

The elf king's gaze sharpened on Thorin and his lips thinned. "Erebor was no friend to the Greenwood well before the dragon came," he said. "Or don't you recall that your grandfather called me to his halls only to taunt and insult me?"

"I thought the long lives of the Firstborn allowed them more time to acquire wisdom, not hold petty grudges," Thorin said. "I am not my grandfather."

"You have not distinguished yourself from his actions of late," Thranduil returned. "He, also, shut himself away in the mountain and hoarded his riches. The greed of Durin's line breeds true."

"You speak of greed as if you know nothing of it," Thorin growled, seething now. "Many things from the days I spent taken by the dragon's curse are unclear, but not the sight of you ordering a knife to my Consort's throat while you demanded half the wealth of my kingdom."

" _Thorin,_ " Bilbo said sharply, finally interrupting the sparks that threatened to fly between Thorin and the elvenking. "Please try not to deliberately antagonize him."

"Your capacity for forgiveness continues to amaze me," Thorin said. "I seem to remember you saying you were furious."

"Don't you sit there and pretend you don't know why King Thranduil was being impossible," Bilbo said. "Unless you doubt what Gandalf said about Smaug's effect on the treasure, the mountain, and everyone around it - and if you have started doubting it, we will have words."

"I haven't," Thorin said quickly, deflating Bilbo before he could get truly worked up. It was something to see when he did - only a couple days ago, a particularly demanding dwarf who wouldn't take 'no' for an answer when it came to entering Erebor earned himself a scathing lecture from the Consort that easily lasted a quarter of an hour before Bilbo started to repeat himself. He took Bilbo's hand and squeezed it reassuringly, giving him a smile before turning back to Thranduil. "Gandalf is working to lift Smaug's curse from the treasure as we speak. Once it is gone, the White Gems of Lasgalen will be returned to you immediately, and I will thank you to remove your army from my lands."

"That," Thranduil said coldly, "was not the agreement we came to before the gate."

Thorin sucked in a breath and nearly came to his feet, despite his exhaustion, but Bilbo tugged at his hand, shaking his head minutely. "King Thranduil," Bilbo said, in the deceptively reasonable tone Thorin had come to know heralded a very pointed rebuke, "I do believe that agreement was reached as a ransom payment, isn't that correct?"

"A ransom payment that was your idea," Thranduil said.

Thorin half-rose from his chair again. "The original agreement was for a _fourteenth-_ "

"Thorin," Bilbo said, still in that bland tone of voice, and Thorin subsided with a dark glare at Thranduil. "Now, please correct me if I'm wrong, but in order to collect a ransom, you would need to possess something worth ransoming. As I am no longer your prisoner, I do believe you've lost your leverage."

Thranduil's jaw clenched and he fixed Bilbo with a long, cold stare. Bilbo returned it with a wide-eyed, almost innocent expression that made Thorin want to take him in his arms and kiss him breathless for deftly making such a fool out of the elvenking. 

After a moment, Thranduil slowly leaned back in his chair and relaxed all at once, like he was forcing himself to affect an air of unconcern. "The gems are my property," he said. "We will remain until they are returned."

"After which, you will return to your own kingdom," Thorin said. "If the armies of the Greenwood darken my doorstep again without invitation, I will not be so forgiving the next time."

"Remember which one of us intruded unannounced on whose lands, Thorin son of Thrain," Thranduil said. "My army came to Dale, not Erebor."

"Interesting," Thorin said, "since I clearly remember your army laying siege to Erebor's gates."

"The point _is,_ " Bilbo said, squeezing Thorin's hand again, "you will get what you wanted. As for King Bard-"

"Bard is fine," Bard said quietly. "You say that there is a curse on the treasure?"

"Yes," Bilbo said. "According to Gandalf, dragons leave great evil in their wake, and it is especially bound to their treasure. He believes the curse may have affected everyone who came near the mountain." At this, he gave Thranduil a long, significant look, as if he was silently berating the elvenking for his behavior and excusing it at the same time.

Bard's face fell into a troubled frown. "That... explains what transpired between us at the gate."

Thorin had to fight the urge to drop his eyes from Bard's, still ashamed of his actions even when he knew he was not to blame for them. "I wish to apologize for my words to you then," he said. "Of all people, I should have been the first to offer my hand to those left bereft by the dragon, and yet I turned you away - and broke my word."

"I, too, behaved rashly," Bard said. "While our situation was indeed desperate, once King Thranduil arrived with food for our people there was no reason to press again so quickly. I... it seemed so immediate and dire, at the time, but looking back on it, I would not make the same decision again."

"Think nothing of it," Bilbo said. "It's a difficult thing to lose your home, and your people were frightened and angry. You did what you thought was best by them - and if anyone can understand that, I can."

"Do you know when Gandalf might finish his work?" Bard asked.

"No," Thorin said reluctantly. "Believe me, there will be none more pleased than I when Erebor is deemed habitable again. My people might be used to wandering homeless, but we have already put out word that the dragon is dead and the mountain reclaimed, and you do not have the resources to support hundreds of dwarves when they return."

"I don't have the resources to support my own people, and there are only barely hundreds of us," Bard said. "I don't begrudge the encampment or your temporary dwelling there. I only need to know when I can expect the funds to begin rebuilding my cities."

"When I know, you will know," Thorin said. "In the meantime, between the provisions my cousin Dain brought for his armies - he packed as if he was expecting the campaign to last several months - and the gifts from the Greenwood, I trust both our peoples can manage."

"I'm sure of it," Bard said. A little half-smile crossed his lips. "I have not yet congratulated you on your engagement," he said, nodding to Bilbo and Thorin in turn. "It was plain to me how deeply you cared for one another, and it cheers me to see you happy."

"Yes, well, you're very perceptive and I'm sure you're quite pleased with yourself," Bilbo said, his ears turning pink. "And thank you."

"Bilbo wishes for a spring wedding," Thorin said. "We will certainly remember you in our invitations, when that time comes."

Bilbo cleared his throat lightly, glancing between Thorin and Thranduil, his expression becoming dismayed when Thorin made no move to repeat the promise to the elvenking. "Thorin," he hissed quietly. "We are _neighbors,_ and we will invite him to be _neighborly._ "

Thranduil smirked at that, holding Thorin's eyes as if he knew that the prospect annoyed him to the core.

"Certainly," Thorin said through gritted teeth. "I am sure Lady Tauriel would wish for her friend Legolas to attend, after all, since Kili will be standing in the ceremony and I imagine she would become quite bored otherwise."

Thranduil's smirk vanished into another one of his frigid glares, and he inclined his head stiffly. "I look forward to it," he said, sounding quite the opposite.

"If that's all!" Bilbo said, a little shrill, tugging at Thorin's hand. "I'm afraid Thorin still needs his rest. If there is anything else, you may contact me directly."

Thorin couldn't quite contain a wince when he rose from the chair, and Bilbo hurried to tuck himself beneath Thorin's good arm, supporting him as best he could, even if he was a little too short to offer proper support.

"Well," Bilbo said, when they had left the tent. "That didn't go as badly as I expected."

"What did you think was going to happen?" Thorin asked.

"Oh, any number of things. Declarations of war, bloodshed, murder, screams, mayhem." Bilbo's tone was light, and his smile said he was teasing, but Thorin still frowned.

"I am hardly healthy enough to be murdering elf kings, no matter how snide and arrogant they are," he said.

"Oh, good, I'm glad _that's_ the part of that summary you disagree with," Bilbo said dryly.

"In my defense, I did not start it."

"Yes, certainly, that's a mature and reasoned argument. I believe I've heard Kili use it before."

They were still bickering good-naturedly when the cart returned them to their tent. Thorin had no desire to go back inside as of yet. Bilbo had someone fetch him a chair and settled him into it before ducking into the tent to retrieve his pipe. Thorin pulled a face when he noticed that his own pipe was missing, but Bilbo only sniffed at him.

"Oin said no smoking until he's certain the ribs are mended," Bilbo said. "We can't have you jostling one out of place with a cough."

Thorin found that he didn't miss it much. He was content to sit beside Bilbo, who pulled up a crate until he was close enough to lean his head on Thorin's shoulder, the two of them watching the camp bustle with activity in comfortable silence. The coming days would be long and trying, and there was much work to be done before Erebor was returned to glory, but Thorin was beginning to see the task as a welcome challenge, one he and his Consort would take on together.

Bilbo puffed a smoke ring, and it floated over the tops of the tents, seeming to hover over the crown of the Lonely Mountain where it rose proudly from the horizon. Thorin pressed a soft kiss to Bilbo's curls and wondered if he would eventually get used to this closeness, if it would ever stop feeling like he was on the edge of waking from a dream.

Then Bilbo turned his head and stole a kiss from Thorin's lips, and Thorin decided he didn't care - if he forever felt as if every time they touched was the first, that would suit him perfectly fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus ends the main plot. There will be one more chapter that functions as a sort of epilogue, which will probably go up in a couple of days. Thank you all for reading :)
> 
> My wonderful betas, baggvinshield and trollmblr5000, were so good to me throughout this process <3


	7. Chapter 7

It was close to three weeks before Gandalf returned from the mountain, looking pale and stooped and very old indeed. "The dragon's curse is gone," he told Thorin and Bilbo wearily, leaning on his staff. "It will trouble you and your people no more."

"Thank you," Thorin said. "You have done Durin's Folk a great service, one which we may never be able to repay. You will always be welcome in Erebor's halls."

"Only do send word ahead!" Bilbo added. "It is quite trying on the nerves to have a wizard show up unexpectedly."

"A wizard comes and goes as he pleases, Bilbo Baggins," Gandalf said. "And it pleases me to take my leave of you, for a time. I wish you happiness and peace, my friends, and long lives together." He turned to leave and then paused, turning back around. "One last thing. That ring you found in the goblin tunnels."

Bilbo schooled the surprise from his face. "Ring?"

"Do not take me for a fool," Gandalf said, eyebrows bristling. "Magic rings should not be used lightly."

"I don't think you need to worry about that," Bilbo said. "I'll keep it as a souvenir, perhaps on the mantle. My burglaring days are quite behind me."

"Hmph. See that you do, and I will be keeping my eye on you," Gandalf said, and then he left the tent and was gone.

_Wizards,_ Bilbo thought with a snort.

If he thought Thorin was filled with restless energy in the time he was confined to bed-rest, he was practically frenetic with the news that his people could finally enter their home. He knew it had chafed at Thorin that Smaug still had _any_ effect over his home, and Bilbo was quite certain that finally getting into the mountain again would be very good for his recovery.

That said, for all the times he skillfully deflected dwarves from ambushing their king with petty concerns as they walked through the encampment to oversee its breakdown, he spent an equal number of times herding Thorin away from hanging over the shoulders of dwarves who were doing quite well at their tasks and did not need their king hovering. He was ready to tear out all his hair by the time they were ready to move, and that was before the heated argument over whether Thorin was well enough to ride to the mountain or not.

"You've only barely gotten on your feet!" Bilbo said. "Oin tells me your ribs will need another _three weeks_ to heal! You cannot tell me that bouncing along on back of a pony will do you any good at all!"

"Bilbo, my people are looking to their King as they return home," Thorin said. He had that infuriating, amused expression on his face that he got when he was certain Bilbo wouldn't understand whatever convoluted dwarf cultural _thing_ was in play. "I won't ride in the back of a vegetable cart."

"You will if that's what's good for you, and that's final!" Bilbo said, resisting the urge to stamp his foot by only the slimmest of margins.

In the end, it was the first argument he lost since the battle. When they returned to Erebor, Thorin rode proudly on the back of a pony with Bilbo at his side and the Company ranging behind him. Tauriel and Kili kept to the edge, where Tauriel's full-size horse would attract a bit less attention, but Fili rode on his uncle's other side. King, Consort, and Crown Prince would enter the gates together, at the head of the long caravan of dwarves, just as Thorin wanted.

Bilbo rode with his lips pursed and a scowl on his face, watching Thorin wince with every movement over uneven ground. "Fine, are you?" he asked tartly, giving Thorin a significant look out of the corner of his eye.

"I will be when we are home again," Thorin said, his gaze fixed on the Lonely Mountain and a small, wistful smile on his lips. Bilbo didn't have the heart to scold him, not when he looked like that. He would do it later, in private, when he could give Thorin a proper dressing-down without the kingdom looking on.

They drew the ponies to a halt before the gate. It took Fili, Bilbo and Oin working together to help Thorin safely down from the saddle, and Thorin leaned rather heavily on Bilbo's shoulders as they passed under the silent statues on either side of the ruin.

Thorin's hand tensed on Bilbo's shoulder when they finally passed into the mountain's shadow. Bilbo glanced at him to find that he was looking up at the great golden bell, his mouth pulled tight and the corners of his eyes pinched.

"It's gone, Thorin," Bilbo said quietly. "You don't have to worry about that again."

"What if Gandalf was wrong?" Thorin asked, voice low and almost lost amid the shouts of laughter rising all around them, as those dwarves in Dain's army who had once called Erebor their home returned to the mountain at last. "What if the failing is with the line of Durin, and not with the dragon's curse?"

"Thorin, look at me," Bilbo said, reaching up to snag the engagement braid he had clumsily put in Thorin's hair that morning, using it to tug Thorin's head around. He stretched up on his tip-toes and tugged again, reeling Thorin in until their foreheads rested together. "I am here for you no matter _what_ happens. But for the record, I am certain Gandalf was right, and I am certain you have nothing to worry about. Don't fret, Thorin. We have enough work in front of us already."

Thorin's smile was slow and warm and it pulled an answering smile from Bilbo even before his dwarf tilted his head and kissed him, lingering and sweet enough to leave Bilbo quite breathless.

"I don't know what I did in my life to deserve you," Thorin said, "but I'm not going to question it."

"Good!" Bilbo said, cheeks hot and aching with the force of his smile. "That's very good, you're learning."

Not many of the old residential districts had held up well under the dragon's tenure, and most of the buildings were unlivable. The tent city sprang up again in the vast open spaces of the Upper Market while work crews organized to begin sorting out a priority for the rebuilding. The work was hard, but the king and his consort were tireless, bolstered by each other and the promise of home. 

Dain took his leave of them after barely a month in Erebor, chafing to return home to the Iron Hills and his own people. Less than half of his army returned with him - slimmed by losses in the battle, yes, but further pared down by the number of dwarves who chose to stay in Erebor. Other dwarves streamed in from where they had been scattered across the corners of Middle Earth over the next few months, called back by the news of the mountain's reclamation. 

Thorin had written to his sister while he still lay abed in the encampment, but it would take Dis several months to lead a sizeable caravan of Durin's Folk through the wilds, and Thorin postponed his coronation until his sister arrived. Once he was well enough, he disappeared for long hours at a time to the Great Forges, lit once more and spilling their glow through the mountain's heart. Instead of crafting wonders of gold and gems, the dwarves of Erebor worked tirelessly on its infrastructure - iron girders, struts and bolts, hinges, and all manner of bits and bobs Bilbo could not place a name to. He ventured down there only occasionally, as the floor of the smithy was a minefield of hot sparks and slag, not suitable for a hobbit's bared feet.

Winter came and went, cold and bitter outside the mountain but staved off by the comfort of the fires at Erebor's heart. They spent the long days snowed into the mountain discussing the Company's places in Erebor's court.

Some were simple - Balin was appointed Chief Advisor, the same position he had effectively held for years, and Dwalin was made Captain of the Guard. Oin was, of course, made Royal Healer, and Gloin the Master of Coin. Fili was quite occupied with his duties as Crown Prince, and at Bilbo's suggestion they placed Kili in charge of the Long Patrol - he was young and restless yet, and it would keep him from being trapped in the mountain. Tauriel, too, would appreciate a chance to get out under the open sky, and Thorin supposed the elf would not be going anywhere from the ridiculous way his nephew trailed after her like she'd hung the stars.

They offered Bofur a place as Chief Overseer of Erebor's mines and Bifur a position as head of the Toymakers' Guild, but they both declined in almost the exact same horrified manner, explaining that they would much rather re-open the family business than deal with the inevitable politics that came with either position. Bombur, on the other hand, was pleased to be appointed Head Cook, just as Ori was absolutely beside himself at the offer of Royal Scribe. Dori argued with them for a solid three days before accepting an appointment as Guildmaster. He made an offhanded comment about giving Nori something to keep him out of trouble with his shady friends that ended up settling their minds on Spymaster - probably not what Dori had in mind, but Nori's underground contacts would certainly be useful. 

The throne was repaired, and the Arkenstone set in its place above it. Thorin had a second throne commissioned to set upon the dais beside his own. They stood hand-in-hand as the workers carried the smaller, polished-wood seat to its place at Thorin's right hand, the tips of Bilbo's ears pinking at the sheer spectacle of it all.

"You're ridiculous," Bilbo said, quite flustered by all the eyes on him. "We aren't even properly married yet - or coronated, for that matter!"

"You think this is merely for show?" Thorin asked, brushing his fingers over the point of Bilbo's left ear to rub his thumb over the engagement braid. "As far as my people are concerned, we are as good as wed, and you have been ruling Erebor these past few months the same as I."

Bilbo turned red, but before he could protest, the strident blast of a horn carried through the mountain from the gate. "Isn't that-?"

"The Horn of Durin," Thorin said, a wide smile breaking over his face. Kili, watching the proceedings from the bottom of the dais, let out a cheerful whoop and practically dragged his brother from the throne room, Tauriel's long strides carrying her after them with a small, amused smile on her face. "My sister is here at last."

Bilbo smelled the early touches of spring in the air as they went to the gate to meet the caravan from the Blue Mountains, and it lent a lightness to his step and helped quell some of his nervousness. The boys spoke of their mother as if she was the most frightening dwarrowdam alive, the only person besides Bilbo who could tweak the King's ear and get away with it.

"Oh my," Bilbo said, as they passed through the gate to find easily a hundred dwarves stretched out across the lingering snows of winter. Carts and wagons were heaped high and wrapped in canvas, ponies and goats and battle-rams like those in Dain's army stamped their hooves and blew out clouds of breath.

All that would have been intimidating enough if it hadn't been for the proud figure of a dwarrowdam at its head, her long hair as black as Thorin's but with fewer streaks of silver. Her beard was full and caught up in several tight braids, the ends of them tucked neatly behind her ears. Her eyes were like Thorin's, too, the same deep blue, but with more amusement than gravity.

"Ma!" Kili yelled, throwing himself at her and practically tackling her off her feet. Fili approached at a more sedate pace, but with no less bright of a smile.

"So! You did survive the battle in one piece," Dis said. She threw one arm around each of her sons, crushing them to her breast with what Bilbo could tell was prodigious strength. Fili bore it with good grace, but after a small while Kili began struggling and protesting and finally wormed his way out of her grasp.

"They did well for themselves," Thorin said, hanging back. Bilbo remembered that he and Dis had fought before he set out on the quest, over Thorin's decision to take his nephews along.

"I knew they would," Dis said. Bilbo took a very small step away from Thorin as she approached, giving her room to throw both arms around her brother and knock their foreheads together with force. "And I'm glad to see _you_ still in one piece as well."

"Not for lack of trying," Bilbo said dryly, and then had the disconcerting pleasure of Dis's sharp gaze turned directly on him.

"You must be Bilbo," she said, and all of Bilbo's worries evaporated as she released her brother and embraced him instead, resting her forehead against his much more gently than she had with Thorin. "My brother wrote four whole sentences about you in his letter, which surely makes you something remarkable. All I got about my sons was, 'The boys are fine.'"

"Thorin!" Bilbo cried, aghast, fixing his dwarf with a sharp look. "'Fine!' What a thing to write to a worrying mother! I have half a mind to twist your ear, in front of all and sundry!"

Dis burst into laughter, thumping Bilbo on the back hard enough to propel him forward a little. "Oh yes, you're absolutely perfect for him. You'll keep him in line rightly enough."

Thorin frowned at them both, though laughter danced in his eyes. "I should have known the two of you would team up against me," he said.

"Someone has to," Bilbo said, and that set Dis to laughing again.

"I am so pleased to see you happy, Thorin," Dis said. "And I have a surprise for your Consort."

"For me?" Bilbo asked, but his question was ignored as Dis turned and cupped both hands around her mouth.

"Come on then! He came to meet us at the gate!" she called, her voice carrying out over the caravan. 

Bilbo thought he was already startled enough, but when three wagons that were plainly of Shire make separated from the rest of the caravan to roll up front to the gate, he found that his mouth was hanging open and shut it quickly.

"Bilbo Baggins!" a bright, cheerful voice called from the wagon in front.

"Primula? What on earth are you doing here? You're barely of age! Drogo, you haven't let her corrupt you into a Brandybuck already, have you?" Bilbo asked, watching a hobbit that certainly _looked_ like his young cousin hop to the ground from the front of the wagon. Despite his surprise, he went to meet her, catching her up in a firm embrace.

"Only try and stop her," Drogo said, still sat atop the wagon with the ponies' reins in his hands. He smiled broadly and nodded when Bilbo looked over to him. "If running about as a fauntling with you and a passel of Tooks wasn't enough to do me in already, that is."

"Of course it's me, you daft thing!" Primula cried. "And is that any way to greet your baby cousin? Did you think we were going to let you get married surrounded by great lumping dwarves with no notion of what makes a proper wedding?" Primula's hair was bound back tightly, and she wore a very plain dress of heavy woolen skirts. Drogo, too, was dressed for travel - more sensible than Bilbo had been, at least, when he ran out his door. And not only those two - hobbits were climbing down from the other wagons as well.

"My goodness, did you bring half of Tuckborough with you?" Bilbo asked, thoroughly shocked by this development. "Why - that's Adalgrim Took! Tell me he didn't bring his entire brood out into the Wild with him."

Primula's cheeks pinked and she glanced over her shoulder at Adalgrim. "No, no, he left them all with poor Iris, bless her soul. We didn't even know he was with us until we were nearly a day out of Bree, and we weren't about to turn back just for one unruly Took."

"We were passing by the Shire when your cousin flagged us down," Dis said. She and Thorin had come to join them, both looking faintly amused at Bilbo's consternation. "She wouldn't hear of us going to Erebor without her and the handful of relatives she dragged with her. I must say, without them we would not have eaten nearly as well on the road."

"Well, it's a good thing you had us along!" Primula said firmly. "Can you imagine months with only _cram_ to eat?"

"I don't have to imagine," Bilbo said dryly.

"Oh, I thought you looked thin," Primula said, fussing now, tugging at the shirt over Bilbo's middle. She rounded on Thorin and, to Bilbo's extreme embarrassment, poked the king right in the chest. "You! You should be making sure he eats and doesn't fret himself into a state! A Baggins will worry himself into a slip of a thing at very little provocation, and I should know, I married one!"

"We did have quite a hard journey," Thorin said, grinning at Bilbo, and now Bilbo regretted all the times he had poked fun at Thorin when he groaned over Dis embarrassing him once she arrived. "And it's been a slim winter."

"Primula dear," Drogo said from the wagon. "You can scold the King later - we have quite a lot of people to get situated." Fili and Kili gravitated toward the wagons, excited to meet Bilbo's relatives, with Tauriel bringing up the rear. Before long, the boys were tasked with lifting barrels and crates out of the backs of the wagons while Primula's sister Amaranth directed the proceedings.

"Oh yes, of course," Primula said, like she had only now realized the caravan was waiting for the reunions to finish before it entered the mountain. "We'll catch up later, Bilbo, I'm sure you have so _much_ to tell us. All those exciting adventures!"

"And we have a coronation to plan," Dis said, clapping Thorin on the shoulder.

The presence of hobbits in Erebor seemed to bring the spring on all the more swiftly. Bilbo spent the evenings on the ramparts with the male half of his cousins, enjoying one of the barrels of Old Toby they'd brought with them. 

"Honestly, Adalgrim, I hope your wife hangs you in the root cellar by your ankles when you get back to the Shire for leaving her alone with all those fauntlings," Bilbo said. He took a long draw on his pipe and puffed out a series of smoke rings, each smaller than the last. "How many do you have nowadays?"

"Four," Adalgrim said, puffing on his own pipe. "And it's not as bad as all that - my boy Paladin is the youngest, and he's eight now - hardly a babe in arms."

"Not like wee little Saradoc," Drogo said, dry as a bone. "Forget Adalgrim, I was convinced Rory's wife was going to wring his neck at least once a week while we were on the way."

"Oh you _never_ dragged poor Menegilda along the road with a baby!" Bilbo said, staring at Primula's older brother like he'd sprouted antlers.

Rorimac Brandybuck at least had the grace to look a little ashamed of himself, smiling sheepishly around the stem of his pipe. "We muddled through," he said. "Come on then, cous, don't be cross with me. We always said we'd stand up at each others' weddings, and you were there for mine."

"Yes, well, you had the sense to get married in the Shire. I would never have held you to that promise now that I've gone halfway across the world," Bilbo said. "And traveling in the winter, too! You're lucky that babe didn't catch his death."

Herugar Bolger, his cousin on his father's side who Bilbo was quite thoroughly shocked to see outside the Shire, flapped his hand and coughed out a large cloud of smoke. "Quit fussing then, Bilbo. We had enough of that out of Drogo on the road. I want to hear about your adventures!"

That provoked quite a clamor of agreement, and Bilbo's lips curved into a smile. "Well, it all started with one particularly bothersome wizard," he began, and over the course of the two weeks leading up to the coronation, he found himself telling the tale over and again, as many times as his cousins wanted to hear it.

Dis and Bilbo became fast friends, commiserating over Thorin's stubbornness and attacking the political problems of the kingdom as a team. Soon, all of Erebor knew that while the Consort and the Princess were each a force of nature in their own right, when they worked together they were unstoppable, and not even the King would oppose them.

Fili seemed to have gained a certain kind of gravity from the Quest. He gave thought to his words before he spoke, and while he still hadn't quite grown out of the urge to indulge in the occasional prank when Kili was in the mountain, he did seem to have separated himself from his brother. He was serious about his duties as Crown Prince, and on more than one occasion Bilbo actually caught him in Erebor's great library, a thoughtful frown on his face as he read over a tome of some obscure piece of history or archaic treaty. Dis was so proud of him that Bilbo thought she might burst from it sometimes, and Thorin told Bilbo quietly one night that he believed Fili would be a greater king than him, someday.

They saw less of Kili than any of them would have liked. He took to his position as Captain of the Long Patrol with enthusiasm, but it meant that he was often gone for weeks at a time, searching the hills around the Lonely Mountain for bandits and goblins, sometimes riding the wide circuit south of the Long Lake. Tauriel was always with him, the two of them inseparable. Tauriel wore a braid behind her left ear that was much like Bilbo's own, tipped with a bead Kili had made for her. They were happy together, although they had yet to talk of marriage. Thorin was not concerned - for dwarves, weddings were largely a formality. As far as the kingdom was concerned, their younger prince was already wed. Tauriel was a quiet, steadying presence next to Kili's brash impulsiveness. They balanced each other well, and Dis and Tauriel were beginning to become cautious friends.

As Bilbo had predicted, it was Primula that drove him around the bend - she and Menegilda, and Primula's elder sister Amaranth, and Herugar's wife Jessamine quickly joined forces with Dori and Balin, positively starry-eyed at the thought of planning a royal wedding. Primula followed Bilbo like she was a burr attached to the cuffs of his trousers, nattering on about this color of ribbon or that seating arrangement, all the while pressing him to set a date with typical Brandybuck forthrightness.

Bilbo finally had to put his foot down one afternoon during tea, as they all sat around occupied with quiet tasks and light gossip. Primula started musing about what a brilliant idea it would be to combine the wedding and the coronation both, and Bilbo's patience frayed at last. "This is my wedding, thank you!" he said, worked up into a temper. "I will set the date for it, and that date will be April the Twenty-Sixth, and I will hear no more about it until the end of the month at _least!_ "

"Good date," Jessamine said from the corner, where she was embroidering Bilbo's handkerchiefs with Durin house colors. "Should be warm by then, unless these mountains plan on keeping the spring at bay for good. It's planting season in the Shire already."

"My, yes," Menegilda said. "Still cold at night, and it already March! It's a good job the inside of the mountain is so warm, or I'd fear for Saradoc's health." The baby was sleeping peacefully in her arms, and Bilbo felt a stab of regret at his raised voice followed by thankfulness that he hadn't woken the child.

"Why the twenty-sixth, specifically?" Amaranth asked. "And Primula, apologize for upsetting your cousin. He's right - it's his wedding."

"I _am_ sorry, Bilbo," Primula said, looking abashed and very much her age. "It's only that it's so exciting."

All of them had so gracefully ignored Bilbo's fit of temper that now he was embarrassed to have had it. He _had_ been around dwarves too long. "It's all right, Primula, I know you mean well," he said. "As for the date, it's when Thorin and I first met. Not that we liked each other at all, then. I thought he was abominably rude."

"You never!" Primula said with a gasp, flouncing down onto the floor in a puddle of skirts. "You must tell us _everything_ about the two of you."

And so Bilbo found himself once again recounting his adventure, although from quite a different perspective, with a great deal less time spent on orcs, spiders, and daring escapes, and a great deal more spent on his pining after Thorin. It was a lovely sort of reminiscing, certainly more than fit for a storybook, and Bilbo's mind went quite unbidden to the leather-bound journal he'd stowed away in his and Thorin's chambers once they entered the mountain again. Perhaps it was time to pick it back up and work it into something that was less of a journal and more of a proper tale, one that could be carried back to the Shire and told to coming generations. Mad Baggins and the King Under the Mountain, or something of the sort.

All the dwarves seemed quite taken with Bilbo's cousins, and the hobbits in turn were enchanted by Erebor and its dwarves. Thorin and Bilbo would often return to the Royal Wing, where both the Company and Bilbo's family was housed until more suitable living quarters were repaired, to find them all making merry together, drinking ale and smoking pipes and trading gossip. It cheered Bilbo's heart, but at the same time, he frequently found himself wishing they would all stay after the coronation and the wedding, so he could have both his families in one place.

Then, of course, there was the time he spent alone with his husband-to-be. The months of working to rebuild had forged their relationship into something both strong and easy - though they had their share of sniping back and forth with one another, it never seemed to last. Bilbo could never seem to drag Thorin out of bed for breakfast, but his favorite time of the day came to be second breakfast, after the sun had crested the horizon and Thorin rose to join him at the table. It was the time they had only to themselves, without politics to manage or friends to host or relatives to occupy. Bilbo found that, like he had when he lived in Bag End, he came to value those quiet moments the most.

Less than a week before the coronation, Bilbo walked in on Dis and Thorin arguing over crown designs. Thorin refused to wear his grandfather's again, and instead laid it to rest in Thror's empty tomb, another reminder of how much Durin's Folk had lost in their long years of exile. But it was not the design of his that seemed to be giving Dis and Thorin trouble - rather, it was _Bilbo's_ crown they argued over, something that provoked him into sputtering, half-stammered protests.

"We aren't even _married_ yet!" he protested - again, as he had when they set his throne beside Thorin's.

Dis chuckled. "I'm sure you've figured this out by now, but my brother is a hopeless romantic and he's lost in love with you. You're lucky you're not wearing half the treasury as is - and you won't be getting out of this, so don't try." Behind her, Thorin turned a most amusing shade of red, but he didn't argue.

The coronation took place two weeks after Dis's caravan arrived, which seemed to be the bare minimum amount of time necessary to prepare a grand feast and an even grander celebration. Bilbo felt quite put on the spot by the whole thing, but firmly told himself that he may as well consider it practice for their wedding. He stood on Thorin's right in front of his little wooden throne as the crowns were presented, trying to look as if he wasn't terrified out of his wits with so many eyes on him. He needn't have worried - the whole thing was over very quickly, and the most embarrassing part of it was Bilbo's blasted relatives, loudly declaring that the rest of the Shire would never believe Mad Baggins had gone and gotten himself crowned as King's Consort.

Thorin's crown was polished obsidian and silver, as he would not hear of wearing gold after all it had nearly cost him. It echoed the design of his grandfather's without mimicking it; sharp-edged raven wings arched back along Thorin's temples, and in the front were the jagged shapes of oak leaves done in the dwarven style. Bilbo's, on the other hand, was gold - though he had loudly protested, Thorin said the color would suit him better. It was little more than a circlet, but around it wound thin, delicate vines tipped in tiny, six-pointed flowers made of shimmering mithril. Bilbo didn't recognize them, and during the feast afterward, he asked Thorin what they were.

"We call them Winter's Star," Thorin said. "It is the only flower on the mountain the blooms throughout the snows, and it is a symbol of endurance and constancy. I can think of no better symbol for you to bear, for you have been my constant guide through many trials."

Bilbo didn't trust his voice, so he only wound his fingers around Thorin's braids and pulled him down into a kiss that set the whole hall cheering. All along, the dwarves had called him their lucky number, and perhaps he had brought them luck along the road. But in his mind, all his luck was here, in gaining a love so true to call his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A nice fluffy epilogue to wrap it all up :)
> 
> Folks who have been asking about LotR in this 'verse - I see it happening much the same, so I don't see myself visiting those events. If I do write anything more, it'll be small one-shots. Thank you all for reading, commenting, and enjoying!

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is dedicated to [Avelera](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Avelera/pseuds/Avelera), who inspired the whole nonsense and got the wheels in my head turning in the first place.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [King's Ransom Fan Art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3812788) by [TheLadyZephyr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyZephyr/pseuds/TheLadyZephyr)




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